/7       P" 


LANGUAGE 


AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  THE  STUDY 
OF  SPEECH 


EDWARD  SAPIR 


NEW   YORK 

HARCOURT,  BRACE  AND  COMPANY 


COPYBIGHT,    1921,  BY 

Kabcoubt,  brace  aad  company,  ma 


Minted  in  the  u  s.  k 


p 

/  OS 


PREFACE 

This  little  book  aims  to  give  a  certain  perspective  on 
the  subject  of  language  rather  than  to  assemble  facts 
about  it.  It  has  little  to  say  of  the  ultimate  psychologi- 
cal basis  of  speech  and  gives  only  enough  of  the  actual 
descriptive  or  historical  facts  of  particular  languages  to 
illustrate  principles.  Its  main  purpose  is  to  show  what 
I  conceive  language  to  be,  what  is  its  variability  in  place 
and  time,  and  what  are  its  relations  to  other  fundamen- 
tal human  interests — the  problem  of  thought,  the  nature 
of  the  historical  process,  race,  culture,  art. 

The  perspective  thus  gained  will  be  useful,  I  hope, 
both  to  linguistic  students  and  to  the  outside  public  that 
is  half  inclined  to  dismiss  linguistic  notions  as  the  pri- 
vate pedantries  of  essentially  idle  minds.  Knowledge 
of  the  wider  relations  of  their  science  is  essential  to 
professional  students  of  language  if  they  are  to  be  saved 
from  a  sterile  and  purely  technical  attitude.  Among 
contemporary  writers  of  influence  on  liberal  thought 
Croce  is  one  of  the  very  few  who  have  gained  an  under- 
standing of  the  fundamental  significance  of  language. 
He  has  pointed  out  its  close  relation  to  the  problem  of 
art.  I  am  deeply  indebted  to  him  for  this  insight. 
Quite  aside  from  their  intrinsic  interest,  linguistic  forms 
and  historical  processes  have  the  greatest  possible  diag- 
nostic value  for  the  understanding  of  some  of  the  more 
difficult  and  elusive  problems  in  the  psychology  of 
thought  and  in  the  strange,  cumulative  drift  in  the  life 
of  the  human  spirit  that  we  call  history  or  progress  or 


iv  PREFACE 

evolution.     This  value  depends  chiefly  on  the  uncon- 
scious and  unrationalized  nature  of  linguistic  structure. 

I  have  avoided  most  of  the  technical  terms  and  all 
of  the  technical  symbols  of  the  linguistic  academy. 
There  is  not  a  single  diacritical  mark  in  the  book. 
Where  possible,  the  discussion  is  based  on  English  ma- 
terial. It  was  necessary,  however,  for  the  scheme  of 
the  book,  which  includes  a  consideration  of  the  protean 
forms  in  which  human  thought  has  found  expression, 
to  quote  some  exotic  instances.  For  these  no  apology 
seems  necessary.  Owing  to  limitations  of  space  I  have 
had  to  leave  out  many  ideas  or  principles  that  I  should 
have  liked  to  touch  upon.  Other  points  have  had  to  be 
barely  hinted  at  in  a  sentence  or  flying  phrase.  Never- 
theless, I  trust  that  enough  has  here  been  brought  to- 
gether to  serve  as  a  stimulus  for  the  more  fundamental 
study  of  a  neglected  field. 

I  desire  to  express  my  cordial  appreciation  of  the 
friendly  advice  and  helpful  suggestions  of  a  number  of 
friends  who  have  read  the  work  in  manuscript,  notably 
Profs.  A.  L.  Kroeber  and  R.  H.  Lowie  of  the  University 
of  California,  Prof.  W.  D.  Wallis  of  Reed  College,  and 
Prof.  J.  Zeitlin  of  the  University  of  Illinois. 

Edward  Sapir. 

Ottawa,  Ont., 
April  8,  1921. 


CONTENTS 

FAGB 

Pbefack iii 

CHAPTER 

I.    Inteoductoey  :  Language  Defined        ....         1 

Language  a  cultural,  not  a  biologically  inherited, 
function.  Futility  of  interjectional  and  sound- 
imitative  theories  of  the  origin  of  speech.  Defini- 
tion of  language.  The  psycho-physical  basis  of 
speech.  Concepts  and  language.  Is  thought  possi- 
ble without  language?  Abbreviations  and  transfers 
of  the  speech  process.  The  universality  of  lan- 
guage. 

II.   The  Elements  of  Speech 24 

Sounds  not  properly  elements  of  speech.  Words 
and  significant  parts  of  words  (radical  elements, 
grammatical  elements  ) .  Types  of  words.  The  word 
a  formal,  not  a  functional  unit.  The  word  has  a 
real  psychological  existence.  The  sentence.  The 
cognitive,  volitional,  and  emotional  aspects  of 
speech.     Feeling-tones  of  words. 


V   III.   The  Sounds  of  Language 


43 


The  vast  number  of  possible  sounds.  The  articu- 
lating organs  and  their  share  in  the  production  of 
speech  sounds:  lungs,  glottal  cords,  nose,  mouth 
and  its  parts.  Vowel  articulations.  How  and 
where  consonants  are  articulated.  The  phonetic 
habits  of  a  language.  The  "values"  of  sounds. 
Phonetic  patterns. 

IV.    FoEM  IN  Language:  Geajisiatical  Peocesses   .        .       59 

Formal  processes  as  distinct  from  grammatical 
functions.  Intercrossing  of  the  two  points  of  view. 
Six  main  types  of  grammatical  process.  Word 
sequence  as  a  method.  Compounding  of  radical 
elements.  Affixing:  prefixes  and  suffixes;  infixes. 
Internal  vocalic  change;  consonantal  change.  Re- 
duplication. Functional  variations  of  stress;  of 
pitch. 


vi  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

V.    FoBM  IN  Language:  Geammaticax  Concepts      .        .       S6 

Analysis  of  a  typical  English  sentence.  Types  of 
concepts  illustrated  by  it.  Inconsistent  expression 
of  analogous  concepts.  How  the  same  sentence  may 
be  expressed  in  other  languages  with  striking  dif- 
ferences in  the  selection  and  grouping  of  concepts. 
Essential  and  non-essential  concepts.  The  mixing 
of  essential  relational  concejJts  wiih  secondary  ones 
of  more  concrete  order.  Form  for  form's  sake. 
Classiiication  of  linguistic  concepts:  basic  or  con- 
crete, derivational,  concrete  relational,  pure  rela- 
tional. Tendency  for  these  types  of  concepts  to  flow 
into  each  other.  Categories  expressed  in  various 
grammatical  systems.  Order  and  stress  as  relating 
principles  in  the  sentence.  Concord.  Parts  of 
speech:  no  absolute  classification  possible;  noun 
and  verb. 

VI.    Types  of  Linguistic  Stbuctuee 127 

Tlie  possibility  of  classifying  languages.  Difficul- 
ties. Classification  into  form-languages  and  form- 
less languages  not  valid.  Classification  according 
to  formal  processes  used  not  practicable.  Classifi- 
cation according  to  degree  of  synthesis.  "Inflec- 
tive" and  "agglutinative."  Fusion  and  symbolism 
as  linguistic  techniques.  Agglutination.  "Inflec- 
tive" a  confused  term.  Threefold  classification  sug- 
gested: what  types  of  concepts  are  expressed? 
what  is  the  prevailing  technique?  what  is  the  de- 
gree of  synthesis?  Four  fundamental  conceptual 
tj-pes.  Examples  tabulated.  Historical  test  of  the 
validity  of  the  suggested  conceptual  classification. 

VII.    Language  as  a  Historical  Product:  Drift       .        .     157 

Variability  of  language.  Individual  and  dialectic 
variations.  Time  variation  or  "drift."  How  dia- 
lects arise.  Linguistic  stocks.  Direction  or 
"slope"  of  linguistic  drift.  Tendencies  illustrated 
in  an  English  sentence.  Hesitations  of  usage  as 
symptomatic  of  the  direction  of  drift.  Leveling 
tendencies  in  English.  Weakening  of  case  elements. 
Tendency  to  fixed  position  in  tlie  sentence.  Drift 
toward  the  invariable  word. 

VTTT.    Language  as  a  Historicai.  PnonrcT:  Phonetic  Law     183 

Parallels   in    drift    in    related    lansniajrcs.      Plionetic 

-^  law  as  illustrated  in  the  history  of  certain  English 

and  German  vowels  and  consonants.     Regularity  of 


CONTENTS  vii 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

phonetic  law.  Shifting  of  sounds  without  destruc- 
tion of  phonetic  pattern.  Difficulty  of  explaining 
the  nature  of  phonetic  drifts.  Vowel  mutation  in 
English  and  German.  Morphological  influence  on 
phonetic  change.  Analogical  levelings  to  offset 
irregularities  produced  by  phonetic  laws.  New 
morplioiogical  features  due  to  phonetic  change. 

IX.    How  Languages  I.nfluexce  Each  Other    .       .       .     205 

Linguistic  influences  due  to  cultural  contact.  Bor- 
rowing of  words.  Resistances  to  borrowing.  Plio- 
netic  modification  of  borrowed  words.  Phonetic 
interinfluencings  of  neighboring  languages.  Mor- 
phological borrowings.  iMorpliological  resemblances 
as  vestiges  of  genetic  relationship. 

^  X.   Lajsguage,  Race,  and  Culture 221 

Naive  tendency  to  consider  linguistic,  racial,  and 
cultural  groupings  as  congruent.  Race  and  lan- 
guage need  not  correspond.  Cultural  and  linguistic 
boiuidaries  not  identical.  Coincidences  between  lin- 
guistic cleavages  and  those  of  language  and  culture 
due  to  historical,  not  intrinsic  psycliological, 
causes.  Language  does  not  in  any  deep  sense  "re- 
flect" culture. 

XI.    Language  and  Literature 236 

Language  as  the  material  or  medium  of  literature. 
Literature  may  move  on  tlie  generalized  linguistic 
plane  or  may  be  inseparable  from  specific  linguistic 
conditions.  Langiiago  as  a  collective  art.  Neces- 
sary estlietic  advantages  or  limitations  in  any  lan- 
guage. Style  as  conditioned  by  inherent  features 
of  the  language.  Prosody  as  conditioned  by  the 
phonetic  dynamics  of  a  language. 

Index 249 


LANGUAGE, 

AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  THE  STUDY  OF  SPEECH 

I 

INTRODUCTORY:  LANGUAGE  DEFINED 

Speech  is  so  familiar  a  feature  of  daily  life  that  we 
rarely  pause  to  define  it.  It  seems  as  natural  to  man 
as  walking,  and  only  less  so  than  breathing.  Yet  it 
needs  but  a  moment's  reflection  to  convince  us  that  this 
naturalness  of  speech  is  but  an  illusory  feeling.  The 
process  of  acquiring  speech  is,  in  sober  fact,  an  utterly 
different  sort  of  thing  from  the  process  of  learning  to 
walk.  In  the  case  of  the  latter  function,  culture,  in 
other  words,  the  traditional  body  of  social  usage,  is  not 
seriously  brought  into  play.  The  child  is  individually 
equipped,  by  the  complex  set  of  factors  that  we  term 
biological  heredity,  to  make  all  the  needed  muscular  and 
nervous  adjustments  that  result  in  walking.  Indeed, 
the  very  conformation  of  these  muscles  and  of  the  ap- 
propriate parts  of  the  nervous  system  may  be  said  to 
be  primarily  adapted  to  the  movements  made  in  walking 
and  in  similar  activities.  In  a  very  real  sense  the  nor- 
mal human  being  is  predestined  to  walk,  not  because 
his  elders  will  assist  him  to  learn  the  art,  but  because 
his  organism  is  prepared  from  birth,  or  even  from 
the  moment  of  conception,  to  take  on  all  those  expendi- 

1 


2  LANGUAGE 

tures  of  nervous  energy  and  all  those  muscular  adap- 
tations that  result  in  walking.  To  put  it  concisely, 
walking  is  an  inherent,  biological  function  of  man. 

Not  so  language.  It  is  of  course  true  that  in  u  cer- 
tain sense  the  individual  is  predestined  to  talk,  but 
that  is  due  entirely  to  the  circumstance  that  he  is  born 
not  merely  in  nature,  but  in  the  lap  of  a  society  that 
is  certain,  reasonably  certain,  to  lead  him  to  its  tradi- 
tions. Eliminate  society  and  there  is  every  reason  to 
believe  that  he  will  learn  to  walk,  if,  indeed,  he  survives 
at  all.  But  it  is  just  as  certain  that  he  will  never  learn 
to  talk,  that  is,  to  communicate  ideas  according  to  the 
traditional  system  of  a  particular  society.  Or,  again, 
remove  the  new-born  individual  from  the  social  envi- 
ronment into  which  he  has  come  and  transplant  him 
to  an  utterly  alien  one.  He  will  develop  the  art  of 
walking  in  his  new  environment  very  much  as  he  would 
have  developed  it  in  the  old.  But  his  speech  will  be 
completely  at  variance  with  the  speech  of  his  native 
environment.  Walking,  then,  is  a  general  human  ac- 
tivity that  varies  only  within  circumscribed  limits  as 
we  pass  from  individual  to  individual.  Its  variability 
is  involuntary  and  purposeless.  Speech  is  a  human 
activity  that  varies  without  assignable  limit  as  we  pass 
from  social  group  to  social  group,  because  it  is  a  purely 
historical  heritage  of  the  group,  the  product  of  long- 
continued  social  usage.  It  varies  as  all  creative  effort 
varies — not  as  consciously,  perhaps,  but  none  the  less 
as  truly  as  do  the  religions,  the  beliefs,  the  customs, 
and  the  arts  of  different  peoples.  Walking  is  an  or- 
ganic, an  instinctive,  function  (not,  of  course,  itself 
an  instinct)  ;  speech  is  a  non-instinctive,  acquired,  "cul- 
tural" function. 

There  is  one  fact  that  has  frequently  tended  to  pre- 


INTRODUCTORY  3 

vent  the  recognition  of  language  as  a  merely  conven- 
tional system  of  sound  symbols,  that  has  seduced  the 
popular  mind  into  attributing  to  it  an  instinctive  basis 
that  it'  does  not  really  possess.  This  is  the  well-known 
observation  that  under  the  stress  of  emotion,  say  of  a 
sudden  twinge  of  pain  or  of  unbridled  joy,  we  do  in- 
voluntarily give  utterance  to  sounds  that  the  hearer  in- 
terprets as  indicative  of  the  emotion  itself.  But  there 
is  all  the  difference  in  the  world  between  such  invol- 
untary expression  of  feeling  and  the  normal  type  of 
communication  of  ideas  that  is  speech.  The  former 
kind  of  utterance  is  indeed  instinctive,  but  it  is  non- 
symbolic;  in  other  words,  the  sound  of  pain  or  the 
sound  of  joy  does  not,  as  such,  indicate  the  emotion, 
it  does  not  stand  aloof,  as  it  were,  and  announce  that 
such  and  such  an  emotion  is  being  felt.  What  it  does 
is  to  serve  as  a  more  or  less  automatic  overflow  of  the 
emotional  energy ;  in  a  sense,  it  is  part  and  parcel  of 
the  emotion  itself.  Moreover,  such  instinctive  cries 
hardly  constitute  communication  in  any  strict  sense. 
They  are  not  addressed  to  any  one,  they  are  merely 
overheard,  if  heard  at  all,  as  the  bark  of  a  dog,  the 
sound  of  approaching  footsteps,  or  the  rustling  of  the 
wind  is  heard.  If  they  convey  certain  ideas  to  the 
hearer,  it  is  only  in  the  very  general  sense  in  which 
any  and  every  sound  or  even  any  phenomenon  in  our 
environment  may  be  said  to  convey  an  idea  to  the  per- 
ceiving mind.  If  the  involuntary  cry  of  pain  which 
is  conventionally  represented  by  "Oh!"  be  looked  upon 
as  a  true  speech  symbol  equivalent  to  some  such  idea 
as  "I  am  in  great  pain,"  it  is  just  as  allowable  to  in- 
terpret the  appearance  of  clouds  as  an  equivalent  sym- 
bol that  carries  the  definite  message  "It  is  likely  to 
rain."     A  definition  of  language,   however,  that  is  sp 


4  LANGUAGE 

extended  as  to  cover  every  type  of  inference  becomes  ut- 
terly meaningless. 

The  mistake  must  not  be  made  of  identifying  our 
conventional  interjections  (our  oh!  and  ah!  and  sh!) 
with  the  instinctive  cries  themselves.  These  interjec- 
tions are  merely  conventional  fixations  of  the  natural 
sounds.  They  therefore  diifer  widely  in  various  lan- 
guages in  accordance  with  the  specific  phonetic  genius 
of  each  of  these.  As  such  they  may  be  considered  an 
integral  portion  of  speech,  in  the  properly  cultural  sense 
of  the  term,  being  no  more  identical  with  the  instinctive 
cries  themselves  than  such  words  as  ' '  cuckoo ' '  and  ' '  kill- 
deer"  are  identical  with  the  cries  of  the  birds  they 
denote  or  than  Rossini's  treatment  of  a  storm  in  the 
overture  to  "William  Tell"  is  in  fact  a  storm.  In  other 
words,  the  interjections  and  sound-imitative  words  of 
normal  speech  are  related  to  their  natural  prototypes 
as  is  art,  a  purely  social  or  cultural  thing,  to  nature. 
It  may  be  objected  that,  though  the  interjections  differ 
somewhat  as  we  pass  from  language  to  language,  they 
do  nevertheless  offer  striking  family  resemblances  and 
may  therefore  be  looked  upon  as  having  grown  up 
out  of  a  common  instinctive  base.  But  their  case  is 
nowise  different  from  that,  say,  of  the  varying  national 
modes  of  pictorial  representation.  A  Japanese  picture 
of  a  hill  both  differs  from  and  resembles  a  typical  mod- 
ern European  painting  of  the  same  kind  of  hill.  Both 
are  suggested  by  and  both  "imitate"  the  same  natural 
feature.  Neither  the  one  nor  the  other  is  the  same 
thing  as,  or,  in  any  intelligible  sense,  a  direct  outgrowth 
of,  this  natural  feature.  The  two  modes  of  representa- 
tion are  not  identical  because  they  proceed  from  differ- 
ing historical  traditions,  are  executed  with  differing 
pictorial  techniques.     The  interjections  of  Japanese  and 


INTRODUCTORY  5 

English  are,  just  so,  suggested  by  a  common  natural 
prototype,  the  instinctive  cries,  and  are  thus  unavoid- 
ably suggestive  of  each  other.  They  differ,  now  greatly, 
now  but  little,  because  they  are  builded  out  of  histori- 
cally diverse  materials  or  techniques,  the  respective 
linguistic  traditions,  phonetic  systems,  speech  habits  of 
the  two  peoples.  Yet  the  instinctive  cries  as  such  are 
practically  identical  for  all  humanity,  just  as  the  hu- 
man skeleton  or  nervous  system  is  to  all  intents  and 
purposes  a  "fixed,"  that  is,  an  only  slightly  and  "acci- 
dentally" variable,  feature  of  man's  organism. 

Interjections  are  among  the  least  important  of  speech 
elements.  Their  discussion  is  valuable  mainly  because 
it  can  be  shown  that  even  they,  avowedly  the  nearest 
of  all  language  sounds  to  instinctive  utterance,  are  only 
superficially  of  an  instinctive  nature.  Were  it  there- 
fore possible  to  demonstrate  that  the  whole  of  lan- 
guage is  traceable,  in  its  ultimate  historical  and  psycho- 
logical foundations,  to  the  interjections,  it  would  still 
not  follow  that  language  is  an  instinctive  activity.  But, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  all  attempts  so  to  explain  the  origin 
of  speech  have  been  fruitless.  There  is  no  tangible  evi- 
dence, historical  or  otherwise,  tending  to  show  that 
the  mass  of  speech  elements  and  speech  processes  has 
evolved  out  of  the  interjections.  These  are  a  very  small 
and  functionally  insignificant  proportion  of  the  vocabu- 
lary of  language ;  at  no  time  and  in  no  linguistic  prov- 
ince that  we  have  record  of  do  we  see  a  noticeable  tend- 
ency towards  their  elaboration  into  the  primary  warp 
and  woof  of  language.  They  are  never  more,  at  best, 
than  a  decorative  edging  to  the  ample,  complex  fabric. 

What  applies  to  the  interjections  applies  with  even 
greater  force  to  the  sound-imitative  words.  Such  words 
as  "whippoorwill,"  "to  mew,"  "to  caw"  are  in  no  sense 


6  LANGUAGE 

natural  sound;;  that  man  has  instinctively  or  automati- 
cally reproduced.  They  are  just  as  truly  creations  of 
the  human  mind,  flights  of  the  human  fancy,  as  any- 
thing else  in  language.  They  do  not  directly  grow  out 
of  nature,  they  are  suggested  by  it  and  play  with  it. 
Hence  the  onomatopoetic  theory  of  the  origin  of  speech, 
the  theory  that  would  explain  all  speech  as  a  gradual 
evolution  from  sounds  of  an  imitative  character,  really 
brings  us  no  nearer  to  the  instinctive  level  than  is 
language  as  we  know  it  to-day.  As  to  the  theory  itself, 
it  is  scarcely  more  credible  than  its  interjectional  coun- 
terpart. It  is  true  that  a  number  of  words  which  we  do 
not  now  feel  to  have  a  sound-imitative  value  can  be 
shown  to  have  once  had  a  phonetic  form  that  strongly 
suggests  their  origin  as  imitations  of  natural  sounds. 
Such  is  the  English  word  "to  laugh."  For  all  that, 
it  is  quite  impossible  to  show,  nor  does  it  seem  intrinsi- 
cally reasonable  to  suppose,  that  more  than  a  negligible 
proportion  of  the  elements  of  speech  or  anything  at 
all  of  its  formal  apparatus  is  derivable  from  an  onomato- 
poetic source.  However  much  we  may  be  disposed 
on  general  principles  to  assign  a  fundamental  impor- 
tance in  the  languages  of  primitive  peoples  to  the  imi- 
tation of  natural  sounds,  the  actual  fact  of  the  matter 
is  that  these  languages  show  no  particular  preference 
for  imitative  words.  Among  the  most  primitive  peoples 
of  aboriginal  America,  the  Athabaskan  tribes  of  the  Mac- 
kenzie River  speak  languages  in  which  such  words  seem 
to  be  nearly  or  entirely  absent,  while  they  are  used 
freely  enough  in  languages  as  sophisticated  as  English 
and  German.  Such  an  instance  shows  how  little  the 
essential  nature  of  speech  is  concerned  with  the  mere 
imitation   of   things. 

The  way  is  now  cleared  for  a  servieeal)le  deflnition 


INTRODUCTORY  7 

of  language.  Language  is  a  purely  human  and  non- 
instinctive  method  of  communicating  ideas,  emotions,  and 
desires  by  means  of  a  system  of  voluntarily  produced 
symbols.  These  symbols  are,  in  the  first  instance,  audi- 
tory and  they  are  produced  by  the  so-called  "organs 
of  speech."  There  is  no  discernible  instinctive  basis  in 
human  speech  as  such,  however  much  instinctive  ex- 
pressions and  the  natural  environment  may  serve  as  a 
stimulus  for  the  development  of  certain  elements  of 
speech,  however  much  instinctive  tendencies,  motor  and 
other,  may  give  a  predetermined  range  or  mold  to  lin- 
guistic expression.  Such  human  or  animal  communica- 
tion, if  ''communication"  it  may  be  called,  as  is  brought 
about  by  involuntary,  instinctive  cries  is  not,  in  our 
sense,  language  at  all. 

I  have  just  referred  to  the  "organs  of  speech,"  and 
it  would  seem  at  first  blush  that  this  is  tantamount 
to  an  admission  that  speech  itself  is  an  instinctive,  bio- 
logically predetermiiied  activity.  We  must  not  be  mis- 
led by  the  mere  term.  There  are,  properly  speaking, 
no  organs  of  speech;  there  are  only  organs  that  are 
incidentally  useful  in  the  production  of  speech  sounds. 
The  lungs,  the  larynx,  the  palate,  the  nose,  the  tongue, 
the  teeth,  and  the  lips,  are  all  so  utilized,  but  they  are 
no  more  to  be  thought  of  as  primary  organs  of  speech 
than  are  the  fingers  to  be  considered  as  essentially  or- 
gans of  piano-playing  or  the  knees  as  organs  of  prayer. 
Speech  is  not  a  simple  activity  that  is  carried  on  by 
one  or  more  organs  biologically  adapted  to  the  purpose. 
It  is  an  extremely  complex  and  ever-shifting  network 
of  adjustments — in  the  brain,  in  the  nervous  system, 
and  in  the  articulating  and  auditory  organs — tending 
towards  the  desired  end  of  communication.  The  lungs 
developed,    roughly  speaking,   in   connection   with   the 


8  LANGUAGE 

necessary  biological  function  known  as  breathing;  the 
nose,  as  an  organ  of  smell;  the  teeth,  as  organs  useful 
in  breaking  up  food  before  it  was  ready  for  digestion. 
If,  then,  these  and  other  organs  are  being  constantly 
utilized  in  speech,  it  is  only  because  any  organ,  once 
existent  and  in  so  far  as  it  is  subject  to  voluntary  con- 
trol, can  be  utilized  by  man  for  secondary  purposes. 
Physiologically,  speech  is  an  overlaid  function,  or,  to  be 
more  precise,  a  group  of  overlaid  functions.  It  gets 
what  service  it  can  out  of  organs  and  functions,  nerv- 
ous and  muscular,  that  have  come  into  being  and  are 
maintained  for  very  different  ends  than  its  own. 

It  is  true  that  physiological  psychologists  speak  of 
the  localization  of  speech  in  the  brain.  This  can  only 
mean  that  the  sounds  of  speech  are  localized  in  the  audi- 
tory tract  of  the  brain,  or  in  some  circumscribed  por- 
tion of  it,  precisely  as  other  classes  of  sounds  are  lo- 
calized; and  that  the  motor  processes  involved  in  speech 
(such  as  the  movements  of  the  glottal  cords  in  the 
larynx,  the  movements  of  the  tongue  required  to  pro- 
nounce the  vowels,  lip  movements  required  to  articulate 
certain  consonants,  and  numerous  others)  are  localized 
in  the  motor  tract  precisely  as  are  all  other  impulses 
to  special  motor  activities.  In  the  same  way  control 
is  lodged  in  the  visual  tract  of  the  brain  over  all  those 
processes  of  visual  recognition  involved  in  reading.  Nat- 
urally the  particular  points  or  clusters  of  points  of 
localization  in  the  several  tracts  that  refer  to  any  ele- 
ment of  language  are  connected  in  the  brain  by  paths 
of  association,  so  that  the  outward,  or  psycho-physical, 
aspect  of  language,  is  of  a  vast  network  of  associated 
localizations  in  the  brain  and  lower  nervous  tracts,  the 
auditory  localizations  being  without  doubt  the  most 
fundamental   of   all   for   speech.     However,   a   speech- 


INTRODUCTORY  9 

sound  localized  in  the  brain,  even  when  associated  with 
the  particular  movements  of  the  "speech  organs"  that 
are  required  to  produce  it,  is  very  far  from  being  an 
element  of  language.  It  must  be  further  associated 
with  some  element  or  group  of  elements  of  experience, 
say  a  visual  image  or  a  class  of  visual  images  or  a  feel- 
ing of  relation,  before  it  has  even  rudimentary  linguistic 
significance.  This  "element"  of  experience  is  the  con- 
tent or  "meaning"  of  the  linguistic  unit;  the  associated 
auditory,  motor,  and  other  cerebral  processes  that  lie 
immediately  back  of  the  act  of  speaking  and  the  act 
of  hearing  speech  are  merely  a  complicated  symbol 
of  or  signal  for  these  ' '  meanings, ' '  of  which  more  anon. 
We  see  therefore  at  once  that  language  as  such  is  not 
and  cannot  be  definitely  localized,  for  it  consists  of  a 
peculiar  symbolic  relation — physiologically  an  arbitrary 
one — between  all  possible  elements  of  consciousness 
on  the  one  hand  and  certain  selected  elements  local- 
ized in  the  auditory,  motor,  and  other  cerebral  and 
nervous  tracts  on  the  other.  If  language  can  be  said 
to  be  definitely  "localized"  in  the  brain,  it  is  only  in 
that  general  and  rather  useless  sense  in  which  all  as- 
pects of  consciousness,  all  human  interest  and  activity, 
may  be  said  to  be  "in  the  brain."  Hence,  we  have  no 
recourse  but  to  accept  language  as  a  fully  formed  func- 
tional system  within  man's  psychic  or  "spiritual"  con- 
stitution. We  cannot  define  it  as  an  entity  in  psycho- 
physical terms  alone,  however  much  the  psycho-physical 
basis  is  essential  to  its  functioning  in  the  individual. 

From  the  physiologist's  or  psychologist's  point  of  view 
we  may  seem  to  be  making  an  unwarrantable  abstrac- 
tion in  desiring  to  handle  the  subject  of  speech  without 
constant  and  explicit  reference  to  that  basis.  However, 
such  an  abstraction  is  justifiable.     We  can  profitably  dis- 


10  LANGUAGE 

cuss  the  intention,  the  form,  and  the  history  of  speech, 
precisely  as  we  discuss  the  nature  of  any  other  phase  of 
human  culture — say  art  or  religion — as  an  institutional 
or  cultural  entity,  leaving  the  organic  and  psychologi- 
cal mechanisms  back  of  it  as  something  to  be  taken  for 
granted.  Accordingly,  it  must  be  clearly  understood 
that  this  introduction  to  the  study  of  speech  is  not  con- 
cerned with  those  aspects  of  physiology  and  of  physio- 
logical psychology  that  underlie  speech.  Our  study 
of  language  is  not  to  be  one  of  the  genesis  and  opera- 
tion of  a  concrete  mechanism ;  it  is,  rather,  to  be  an  in- 
quiry into  the  function  and  form  of  the  arbitrary  sys- 
tems of  symbolism  that  we  term  languages. 

I  have  already  pointed  out  that  the  essence  of  lan- 
guage consists  in  the  assigning  of  conventional,  volun- 
tarily articulated,  sounds,  or  of  their  equivalents,  to  the 
diverse  elements  of  experience.  The  word  "house"  is 
not  a  linguistic  fact  if  by  it  is  meant  merely  the  acoustic 
effect  produced  on  the  ear  by  its  constituent  consonants 
and  vowels,  pronounced  in  a  certain  order;  nor  the 
motor  processes  and  tactile  feelings  which  make  up  the 
articulation  of  the  word ;  nor  the  visual  perception  on 
the  part  of  the  hearer  of  this  articulation ;  nor  the  visual 
perception  of  the  word  "house"  on  the  written  or 
printed  page;  nor  the  motor  processes  and  tactile  feel- 
ings which  enter  into  the  writing  of  the  word ;  nor  the 
memory  of  any  or  all  of  these  experiences.  It  is  only 
when  these,  and  possibly  still  other,  associated  experi- 
ences are  automatically  associated  with  the  image  of  a 
house  that  they  begin  to  take  on  the  nature  of  a  symbol, 
a  word,  an  element  of  language.  But  the  mere  fact  of 
such  an  association  is  not  eiiougli.  One  might  have  heard 
a  particular  word  spoken  in  an  individual  house  under 
such   impressive   circumstances   that   neither   the   word 


INTRODUCTORY  11 

nor  the  image  of  the  house  ever  recur  in  consciousness 
without  the  other  becoming  present  at  the  same  time. 
This  tj'pe  of  association  does  not  constitute  speech.  The 
association  must  be  a  purely  symbolic  one;  in  other 
words,  the  word  must  denote,  tag  off,  the  image,  must 
have  no  other  significance  than  to  serve  as  a  counter  to 
refer  to  it  whenever  it  is  necessary  or  convenient  to  do 
so.  Such  an  association,  voluntary  and,  in  a  sense,  arbi- 
trary as  it  is,  demands  a  considerable  exercise  of  self- 
conscious  attention.  At  least  to  begin  with,  for  habit 
soon  makes  the  association  nearly  as  automatic  as  any 
and  more  rapid  than  most. 

But  we  have  traveled  a  little  too  fast.  Were  the  sym- 
bol "house" — whether  an  auditory,  motor,  or  visual  ex- 
perience or  image — attached  but  to  the  single  image  of 
a  particular  house  once  seen,  it  might  perhaps,  by  an 
indulgent  criticism,  be  termed  an  element  of  speech,  yet 
it  is  obvious  at  the  outset  that  speech  so  constituted 
would  have  little  or  no  value  for  purposes  of  commu- 
nication. The  world  of  our  experiences  must  be  enor- 
mously simplified  and  generalized  before  it  is  possible 
to  make  a  symbolic  inventory  of  all  our  experiences  of 
things  and  relations;  and  this  inventory  is  imperative 
before  we  can  convey  ideas.  The  elements  of  language, 
the  symbols  that  ticket  off  experience,  must  therefore 
be  associated  with  whole  groups,  delimited  classes,  of 
experience  rather  than  with  the  single  experiences  them- 
selves. Only  so  is  communication  possible,  for  the  single 
experience  lodges  in  an  individual  consciousness  and  is, 
strictly  speaking,  incommunicable.  To  be  communicated 
it  needs  to  be  referred  to  a  class  which  is  tacitly  accepted 
by  the  community  as  an  identity.  Thus,  the  single  im- 
pression which  I  have  had  of  a  particular  house  must 
be  identified  with  all  my  other  impressions  of  it.    Fur- 


12  LANGUAGE 

ther,  my  generalized  memory  or  my  "notion"  of  this 
house  must  be  merged  with  the  notions  that  all  other 
individuals  who  have  seen  the  house  have  formed  of 
it.  The  particular  experience  that  we  started  with  has 
now  been  widened  so  as  to  embrace  all  possible  impres- 
sions or  images  that  sentient  beings  have  formed  or  may 
form  of  the  house  in  question.  This  first  simplification 
of  experience  is  at  the  bottom  of  a  large  number  of  ele- 
ments of  speech,  the  so-called  proper  nouns  or  names 
of  single  individuals  or  objects.  It  is,  essentially,  the 
type  of  simplification  which  underlies,  or  forms  the 
crude  subject  of,  history  and  art.  But  we  cannot  be  con- 
tent with  this  measure  of  reduction  of  the  infinity  of 
experience.  We  must  cut  to  the  bone  of  things,  we 
must  more  or  less  arbitrarily  throw  whole  masses  of  ex- 
perience together  as  similar  enough  to  warrant  their 
being  looked  upon — mistakenly,  but  conveniently — as 
identical.  This  house  and  that  house  and  thousands 
of  other  phenomena  of  like  character  are  thought  of  as 
having  enough  in  common,  in  spite  of  great  and  obvious 
differences  of  detail,  to  be  classed  under  the  same  head- 
ing. In  other  words,  the  speech  element  "house"  is  the 
symbol,  first  and  foremost,  not  of  a  single  perception, 
nor  even  of  the  notion  of  a  particiilar  object,  but  of 
a  "concept,"  in  other  words,  of  a  convenient  capsule  of 
thought  that  embraces  thousands  of  distinct  experiences 
.and  that  is  ready  to  take  in  thousands  more.  If  the 
single  significant  elements  of  speech  are  the  symbols  of 
concepts,  the  actual  flow  of  speech  may  be  interpreted  as 
a  record  of  the  setting  of  these  concepts  into  mutual 
relations. 

The  question  has  often  been  raised  whether  thought  is 
possible  without  speech ;  further,  if  speech  and  thought 
be  not  but  two  facets  of  the  same  psychic  process.    The 


INTRODUCTORY  13 

question  is  all  the  more  difficult  because  it  has  been 
hedged  about  by  misunderstandings.  In  the  first  place, 
it  is  well  to  observe  that  whether  or  not  thought  neces- 
sitates symbolism,  that  is  speech,  the  flow  of  language 
itself  is  not  always  indicative  of  thought.  We  have 
seen  that  the  typical  linguistic  element  labels  a  concept. 
It  does  not  follow  from  this  that  the  use  to  which  lan- 
guage is  put  is  always  or  even  mainly  conceptual.  We 
are  not  in  ordinary  life  so  much  concerned  with  con- 
cepts as  such  as  with  concrete  particularities  and  spe- 
cific relations.  When  I  say,  for  instance,  * '  I  had  a  good 
breakfast  this  morning,"  it  is  clear  that  I  am  not  in 
the  throes  of  laborious  thought,  ti^at  what  I  have  to 
transmit  is  hardly  more  than  a  pleasurable  memory 
symbolically  rendered  in  the  grooves  of  habitual  expres- 
sion. Each  element  in  the  sentence  defines  a  sepa- 
rate concept  or  conceptual  relation  or  both  combined, 
but  the  sentence  as  a  whole  has  no  conceptual  significance 
whatever.  It  is  somewhat  as  though  a  dynamo  capable 
of  generating  enough  power  to  run  an  elevator  were 
operated  almost  exclusively  to  feed  an  electric  door- 
bell. The  parallel  is  more  suggestive  than  at  first  sight 
appears.  Language  may  be  looked  upon  as  an  instru- 
ment capable  of  running  a  gamut  of  psychic  uses.  Its 
flow  not  only  parallels  that  of  the  inner  content  of  con- 
sciousness, but  parallels  it  on  different  levels,  ranging 
from  the  state  of  mind  that  is  dominated  by  particular 
images  to  that  in  which  abstract  concepts  and  their 
relations  are  alone  at  the  focus  of  attention  and  which 
is  ordinarily  termed  reasoning.  Thus  the  outward  form 
only  of  language  is  constant;  its  inner  meaning,  its 
psychic  value  or  intensity,  varies  freely  with  attention 
or  the  selective  interest  of  the  mind,  also,  needless  to  say, 
with  the  mind's  general  development.     From  the  point 


14  LANGUAGE 

of  view  of  language,  thought  may  be  defined  as  the  high- 
est latent  or  potential  content  of  speech,  the  content  that 
is  obtained  by  interpreting  each  of  the  elements  in  the 
flow  of  language  as  possessed  of  its  very  fullest  concep- 
tual value.  From  this  it  follows  at  once  that  language 
and  thought  are  not  strictly  coterminous.  At  best  lan- 
guage can  but  be  the  outward  facet  of  thought  on  the 
highest,  most  generalized,  level  of  symbolic  expression. 
To  put  our  viewpoint  somewhat  differently,  language  is 
primarily  a  pre-rational  function.  It  humbly  works  up 
to  the  thought  that  is  latent  in,  that  may  eventually  be 
read  into,  its  classifications  and  its  forms;  it  is  not,  as 
is  generally  but  naively  assumed,  the  final  label  put  upon 
the  finished  thought. 

Most  people,  asked  if  they  can  think  without  speech, 
would  probably  answer,  ''Yes,  but  it  is  not  easy  for  me 
to  do  so.  Still  I  know  it  can  be  done."  Language  is 
but  a  garment!  But  what  if  language  is  not  so  much 
a  garment  as  a  prepared  road  or  groove  ?  It  is,  indeed, 
in  the  highest  degree  likely  that  language  is  an  instru- 
ment originally  put  to  uses  lower  than  the  conceptual 
plane  and  that  thought  arises  as  a  refined  interpretation 
of  its  content.  The  product  grows,  in  other  words,  with 
the  instrument,  and  thought  may  be  no  more  conceivable, 
in  its  genesis  and  daily  practice,  without  speech  than  is 
mathematical  reasoning  practicable  without  the  lever  of 
an  appropriate  mathematical  symbolism.  No  one  be- 
lieves that  even  the  most  difficult  mathematical  proposi- 
tion is  inherently  dependent  on  an  arbitrary  set  of  sym- 
bols, but  it  is  impossible  to  suppose  that  the  human  mind 
is  capable  of  arriving  at  or  holding  such  a  proposition 
without  the  symbolism.  The  writer,  for  one,  is  strongly 
of  the  opinion  that  the  feeling  entertained  by  so  many 
that  they  can  think,  or  even  reason,  without  language 


INTRODUCTORY  15 

is  an  illusion.  The  illusion  seems  to  be  due  to  a  number 
of  factors.  The  simplest  of  these  is  the  failure  to  dis- 
tinguish between  imagery  and  thought.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  no  sooner  do  we  try  to  put  an  image  into  con- 
scious relation  with  another  than  we  find  ourselves  slip- 
ping into  a  silent  flow  of  words.  Thought  may  be  a 
natural  domain  apart  from  the  artificial  one  of  speech, 
but  speech  would  seem  to  be  the  only  road  we  know 
of  that  leads  to  it.  A  still  more  fruitful  source  of  the 
illusive  feeling  that  language  may  be  dispensed  with 
in  thought  is  the  common  failure  to  realize  that  lan- 
guage is  not  identical  with  its  auditory  symbolism.  The 
auditory  symbolism  may  be  replaced,  point  for  point, 
by  a  motor  or  by  a  visual  symbolism  (many  people  can 
read,  for  instance,  in  a  purely  visual  sense,  that  is,  with- 
out the  intermediating  link  of  an  inner  flow  of  the  audi- 
tory images  that  correspond  to  the  printed  or  written 
words)  or  by  still  other,  more  subtle  and  elusive,  types 
of  transfer  that  are  not  so  easy  to  define.  Hence  the 
contention  that  one  thinks  without  language  merely  be- 
cause he  is  not  aware  of  a  coexisting  auditory  imageiy  is 
very  far  indeed  from  being  a  valid  one.  One  may  go 
so  far  as  to  suspect  that  the  symbolic  expression  of 
thought  may  in  some  cases  run  along  outside  the  fringe 
of  the  conscious  mind,  so  that  the  feeling  of  a  free,  non- 
linguistic  stream  of  thought  is  for  minds  of  a  certain 
type  a  relatively,  but  only  a  relatively,  justified  one. 
Psycho-physically,  this  would  mean  that  the  auditory  or 
equivalent  visual  or  motor  centers  in  the  brain,  to- 
gether with  the  appropriate  paths  of  association,  that 
are  the  cerebral  equivalent  of  speech,  are  touched  off 
so  lightly  during  the  process  of  thought  as  not  to  rise 
into  consciousness  at  all.  This  would  be  a  limiting  case — 
thought  riding  lightly  on  the  submerged  crests  of  speech, 


16  LANGUAGE 

instead  of  jogging  along  with  it,  hand  in  hand.  The 
modern  psychology  has  shown  us  how  powerfully  sym- 
bolism is  at  work  in  the  unconscious  mind.  It  is  there- 
fore easier  to  understand  at  the  present  time  than  it 
would  have  been  twenty  years  ago  that  the  most  rarefied 
thought  may  be  but  the  conscious  counterpart  of  an 
unconscious  linguistic  symbolism. 

One  word  more  as  to  the  relation  between  language 
and  thought.  The  point  of  view  that  we  have  developed 
does  not  by  any  means  preclude  the  possibility  of  the 
growth  of  speech  being  in  a  high  degree  dependent  on 
the  development  of  thought.  We  may  assume  that  lan- 
guage arose  pre-rationally — just  how  and  on  what  pre- 
cise level  of  mental  activity  we  do  not  know — but  we 
must  not  imagine  that  a  highly  developed  system  of 
speech  symbols  worked  itself  out  before  the  genesis  of 
distinct  concepts  and  of  thinking,  the  handling  of  con- 
cepts. We  must  rather  imagine  that  thought  processes 
set  in,  as  a  kind  of  psychic  overflow,  almost  at  the  be- 
ginning of  linguistic  expression;  further,  that  the  con- 
cept, once  defined,  necessarily  reacted  on  the  .life  of 
its  linguistic  symbol,  encouraging  further  linguistic 
growth.  We  see  this  complex  process  of  the  interaction 
of  language  and  thought  actually  taking  place  under 
our  eyes.  The  instrument  makes  possible  the  product, 
the  product  refines  the  instrument.  The  birth  of  a  new 
concept  is  invariably  foreshadowed  by  a  more  or  less 
strained  or  extended  use  of  old  linguistic  material;  the 
concept  does  not  attain  to  individual  and  independent 
life  until  it  has  found  a  distinctive  linguistic  embodi- 
ment. In  most  cases  the  new  symbol  is  but  a  thing 
wrought  from  linguistic  material  already  in  existence 
in  ways  mapped  out  by  crushingly  despotic  precedents. 
As  soon  as  the  word  is  at  hand,  we  instinctively  feel, 


INTRODUCTORY  17 

with  something  of  a  sigh  of  relief,  that  the  concept  is 
ours  for  the  handling.  Not  until  we  own  the  symbol 
do  we  feel  that  we  hold  a  key  to  the  immediate  knowl- 
edge or  understanding  of  the  concept.  Would  we  be  so 
ready  to  die  for  "liberty,"  to  struggle  for  "ideals," 
if  the  words  themselves  were  not  ringing  within  us? 
And  the  word,  as  we  know,  is  not  only  a  key ;  it  may  also 
be  a  fetter. 

Language  is  primarily  an  auditory  system  of  sym- 
bols. In  so  far  as  it  is  articulated  it  is  also  a  motor 
system,  but  the  motor  aspect  of  speech  is  clearly  sec- 
ondary to  the  auditory.  In  normal  individuals  the  im- 
pulse to  speech  first  takes  effect  in  the  sphere  of  auditory 
imagery  and  is  then  transmitted  to  the  motor  nerves  that 
control  the  organs  of  speech.  The  motor  processes  and 
the  accompanying  motor  feelings  are  not,  however,  the 
end,  the  final  resting  point.  They  are  merely  a  means 
and  a  control  leading  to  auditory  perception  in  both 
speaker  and  hearer.  Communication,  which  is  the  very 
object  of  speech,  is  successfully  effected  only  when  the 
hearer's  auditory  perceptions  are  translated  into  the 
appropriate  and  intended  flow  of  imagery  or  thought  or 
both  combined.  Hence  the  cycle  of  speech,  in  so  far  as 
we  may  look  upon  it  as  a  purely  external  instrument, 
begins  and  ends  in  the  realm  of  sounds.  The  concordance 
between  the  initial  auditory  imagery  and  the  final  audi- 
tory perceptions  is  the  social  seal  or  warrant  of  the 
successful  issue  of  the  process.  As  we  have  already  seen, 
the  typical  course  of  this  process  may  undergo  endless 
modifications  or  transfers  into  equivalent  systems  with- 
out thereby  losing  its  essential  formal   characteristics. 

The  most  important  of  these  modifications  is  the  ab- 
breviation of  the  speech  process  involved  in  thinking. 
This  has  doubtless  many  forms,  according  to  the  struc- 


18  LANGUAGE 

tural  or  functional  peculiarities  of  the  individual  mind. 
The  least  modified  form  is  that  known  as  "talking  to 
one's  self"  or  "thinking  aloud."  Here  the  speaker 
and  the  hearer  are  identified  in  a  single  person,  who 
may  be  said  to  communicate  with  himself.  More  signifi- 
cant is  the  still  further  abbreviated  form  in  which  the 
sounds  of  speech  are  not  articulated  at  all.  To  this 
belong  all  the  varieties  of  silent  speech  and  of  normal 
thinking.  The  auditory  centers  alone  may  be  excited; 
or  the  impulse  to  linguistic  expression  may  be  communi- 
cated as  well  to  the  motor  nerves  that  communicate  with 
the  organs  of  speech  but  be  inhibited  either  in  the  mus- 
cles of  these  organs  or  at  some  point  in  the  motor  nerves 
themselves;  or,  possibly,  the  auditory  centers  may  be 
only  slightly,  if  at  all,  affected,  the  speech  process  mani- 
festing itself  directly  in  the  motor  sphere.  There  must 
be  still  other  types  of  abbreviation.  How  common  is 
the  excitation  of  the  motor  nerves  in  silent  speech,  in 
which  no  audible  or  visible  articulations  result,  is  shown 
by  the  frequent  experience  of  fatigue  in  the  speech  or- 
gans, particularly  in  the  larynx,  after  unusually  stimu- 
lating reading  or  intensive  thinking. 

All  the  modifications  so  far  considered  are  directly 
patterned  on  the  typical  process  of  normal  speech.  Of 
very  great  interest  and  importance  is  the  possibility  of 
transferring  the  whole  system  of  speech  symbolism  into 
other  terms  than  those  that  are  involved  in  the  typical 
process.  This  process,  as  we  have  seen,  is  a  matter  of 
sounds  and  of  movements  intended  to  produce  these 
sounds.  The  sense  of  vision  is  not  brought  into  play. 
But  let  us  suppose  that  one  not  only  hears  the  articu- 
lated sounds  but  sees  the  ar'ticulations  themselves  as  they 
are  being  executed  by  the  speaker.  Clearly,  if  one  can 
only  gain  a  sufficiently  high   degree  of  adroitness   in 


INTRODUCTORY  19 

perceiving  these  movements  of  the  speech  organs,  the 
way  is  opened  for  a  new  type  of  speech  symbolism — that 
in  which  the  sound  is  replaced  hy  the  visual  image  of 
the  articulations  that  correspond  to  the  sound.  This 
sort  of  system  has  no  great  value  for  most  of  us  be- 
cause we  are  already  possessed  of  the  auditory-motor  sys- 
tem of  which  it  is  at  best  but  an  imperfect  translation, 
not  all  the  articulations  being  visible  to  the  eye.  How- 
ever, it  is  well  known  what  excellent  use  deaf-mutes  can 
make  of  "reading  from  the  lips"  as  a  subsidiary  method 
of  apprehending  speech.  The  most  important  of  all 
visual  speech  symbolisms  is,  of  course,  that  of  the  writ- 
ten or  printed  word,  to  which,  on  the  motor  side,  corre- 
sponds the  system  of  delicately  adjusted  movements 
which  result  in  the  writing  or  typewriting  or  other 
graphic  method  of  recording  speech.  The  significant 
feature  for  our  recognition  in  these  new  types  of  sym- 
bolism, apart  from  the  fact  that  they  are  no  longer 
a  by-product  of  normal  speech  itself,  is  that  each  ele- 
ment (letter  or  written  word)  in  the  system  corresponds 
to  a  specific  element  (sound  or  sound-group  or  spoken 
word)  in  the  primary  system.  Written  language  is  thus 
a  point-to-point  equivalence,  to  borrow  a  mathematical 
phrase,  to  its  spoken  counterpart.  The  written  forms 
are  secondary  symbols  of  the  spaken  ones — symbols  of 
sjonbols — yet  so  close  is  the  correspondence  that  they 
may,  not  only  in  theory  but  in  the  actual  practice  of  cer- 
tain eye-readers  and,  possibly,  in  certain  types  of  think- 
ing, be  entirely  substituted  for  the  spoken  ones.  Yet  the 
auditory-motor  associations  are  probably  always  latent 
at  the  least,  that  is,  they  are  unconsciously  brought  into 
play.  Even  those  who  read  and  think  without  the  slight- 
est use  of  sound  imagery  are,  at  last  analysis,  dependent 
on  it.    They  are  merely  handling  the  circulating  medium, 


20  LANGUAGE 

the  money,  of  visual  symbols  as  a  convenient  substitute 
for  the  economic  goods  and  services  of  the  fundamental 
auditory  symbols. 

The  possibilities  of  linguistic  transfer  are  practically 
unlimited.  A  familiar  example  is  the  Morse  telegraph 
code,  in  which  the  letters  of  written  speech  are  repre- 
sented by  a  conventionally  fixed  sequence  of  longer  or 
shorter  ticks.  Here  the  transfer  takes  place  from  the 
written  word  rather  than  directly  from  the  sounds  of 
spoken  speech.  The  letter  of  the  telegraph  code  is  thus 
a  symbol  of  a  symbol  of  a  symbol.  It  does  not,  of  course, 
in  the  least  follow  that  the  skilled  operator,  in  order  to 
arrive  at  an  understanding  of  a  telegraphic  message, 
needs  to  transpose  the  individual  sequence  of  ticks  into 
a  visual  image  of  the  word  before  he  experiences  its 
normal  auditory  image.  The  precise  method  of  reading 
off  speech  from  the  telegraphic  communication  undoubt- 
edly varies  widely  with  the  individual.  It  is  even  con- 
ceivable, if  not  exactly  likely,  that  certain  operators  may 
have  learned  to  think  directly,  so  far  as  the  purely  con- 
scious part  of  the  process  of  thought  is  concerned,  in 
terms  of  the  tick-auditory  symbolism  or,  if  they  happen 
to  have  a  strong  natural  bent  toward  motor  symbolism, 
in  terms  of  the  correlated  tactile-motor  symbolism  de- 
veloped in  the  sending  of  telegraphic  messages. 

Still  another  interesting  group  of  transfers  are  the 
different  gesture  languages,  developed  for  the  use  of 
deaf-mutes,  of  Trappist  monks  vowed  to  perpetual  si- 
lence, or  of  communicating  parties  that  are  within  see- 
ing distance  of  each  other  but  are  out  of  earshot.  Some  of 
these  systems  are  one-to-one  equivalences  of  the  normal 
system  of  speech ;  others,  like  military  gesture-symbolism 
or  the  gesture  language  of  the  Plains  Indians  of  North 
America  (understood  by  tribes  of  mutually  unintelligible 


INTRODUCTORY  21 

forms  of  speech)  are  imperfect  transfers,  limiting  them- 
selves to  the  rendering  of  such  grosser  speech  elements 
as  are  an  imperative  minimum  under  difficult  circum- 
stances. In  these  latter  systems,  as  in  such  still  more  im- 
perfect symbolisms  as  those  used  at  sea  or  in  the  woods, 
it  may  be  contended  that  language  no  longer  properly 
plays  a  part  but  that  the  ideas  are  directly  conveyed  by 
an  utterly  unrelated  symbolic  process  or  by  a  quasi- 
instinctive  imitativeness.  Such  an  interpretation  would 
be  erroneous.  The  intelligibility  of  these  vaguer  sym- 
bolisms can  hardly  be  due  to  anything  but  their  auto- 
matic and  silent  translation  into  the  terms  of  a  fuller 
flow  of  speech. 

We  shall  no  doubt  conclude  that  all  voluntary  com- 
munication of  ideas,  aside  from  normal  speech,  is  either 
a  transfer,  direct  or  indirect,  from  the  typical  sym- 
bolism of  language  as  spoken  and  heard  or,  at  the  least, 
involves  the  intermediary  of  truly  linguistic  symbolism. 
This  is  a  fact  of  the  highest  importance.  Auditory  image- 
ry and  the  correlated  motor  imagery  leading  to  articu- 
lation are,  by  whatever  devious  ways  we  follow  the  pro- 
cess, the  historic  fountain-head  of  all  speech  and  of  all 
thinking.  One  other  point  is  of  still  greater  importance. 
The  ease  with  which  speech  symbolism  can  be  transferred 
from  one  sense  to  another,  from  technique  to  technique, 
itself  indicates  that  the  mere  sounds  of  speech  are  not 
the  essential  fact  of  language,  which  lies  rather  in  the 
classification,  in  the  formal  patterning,  and  in  the  relat- 
ing of  concepts.  Once  more,  language,  as  a  structure,  is 
on  its  inner  face  the  mold  of  thought.  It  is  this  ab- 
stracted language,  rather  more  than  the  physical  facts 
of  speech,  that  is  to  concern  us  in  our  inquiry. 

There  is  no  more  striking  general  fact  about  language 
than  its  universality.     One  may  argue  as  to  whether  a 


22  LANGUAGE 

particular  tribe  engages  in  activities  that  are  worthy 
of  the  name  of  religion  or  of  art,  but  we  know  of  no 
people  that  is  not  possessed  of  a  fully  developed  lan- 
guage. The  lowliest  South  African  Bushman  speaks  in 
the  forms  of  a  rich  symbolic  system  that  is  in  essence 
perfectly  comparable  to  the  speech  of  the  cultivated 
Frenchman.  It  goes  without  saying  that  the  more  ab- 
stract concepts  are  not  nearly  so  plentifully  represented 
in  the  language  of  the  savage,  nor  is  there  the  rich  ter- 
minology and  the  finer  definition  of  nuances  that  reflect 
the  higher  culture.  Yet  the  sort  of  linguistic  development 
that  parallels  the  historic  growth  of  culture  and  which, 
in  its  later  stages,  we  associate  with  literature  is,  at  best, 
but  a  superficial  thing.  The  fundamental  groundwork 
of  language — the  development  of  a  clear-cut  phonetic 
system,  the  specific  association  of  speech  elements  with 
concepts,  and  the  delicate  provision  for  the  formal  ex- 
pression of  all  manner  of  relations — all  this  meets  us 
rigidly  perfected  and  systematized  in  every  language 
known  to  us.  Many  primitive  languages  have  a  formal 
richness,  a  latent  luxuriance  of  expression,  that  eclipses 
anything  known  to  the  languages  of  modern  civilization. 
Even  in  the  mere  matter  of  the  inventory  of  speech  the 
layman  must  be  prepared  for  strange  surprises.  Popular 
statements  as  to  the  extreme  poverty  of  expression  to 
which  primitive  languages  are  doomed  are  simply  myths. 
Scarcely  less  impressive  than  the  universality  of  speech 
is  its  almost  incredible  diversity.  Those  of  us  that  have 
studied  French  or  German,  or,  better  yet,  Latin  or  Greek, 
know  in  what  varied  forms  a  thought  may  run.  The 
formal  divergences  between  the  English  plan  and  the 
Latin  plan,  however,  are  comparatively  slight  in  the  per- 
spective of  what  we  know  of  more  exotic  linguistic 
patterns.     The  universality  and  the  diversity  of  speech 


INTRODUCTORY  23 

lead  to  a  significant  inference.  We  are  forced  to  be- 
lieve that  language  is  an  immensely  ancient  heritage  of 
the  human  race,  whether  or  not  all  forms  of  speech  are 
the  historical  outgrowth  of  a  single  pristine  form.  It 
is  doubtful  if  any  other  cultural  asset  of  man,  be  it 
the  art  of  drilling  for  fire  or  of  chipping  stone,  may 
lay  claim  to  a  greater  age.  I  am  inclined  to  believe  that 
it  antedated  even  the  lowliest  developments  of  mate- 
rial culture,  that  these  developments,  in  fact,  were  not 
strictly  possible  until  language,  the  tool  of  significant 
expression,  had  itself  taken  shape. 


II 

THE  ELEMENTS  OF  SPEECH 

"We  have  more  than  once  referred  to  the  ' '  elements  of 
speech,"  by  which  we  understood,  roughly  speaking, 
what  are  ordinarily  called  "words."  We  must  now 
look  more  closely  at  these  elements  and  acquaint  our- 
selves with  the  stuff  of  language.  The  very  simplest 
element  of  speech — and  by  "speech"  we  shall  hence- 
forth mean  the  auditory  system  of  speech  symbolism,  the 
flow  of  spoken  words — is  the  individual  sound,  though, 
as  we  shall  see  later  on,  the  sound  is  not  itself  a  simple 
structure  but  the  resultant  of  a  series  of  independent,  yet 
closely  correlated,  adjustments  in  the  organs  of  speech. 
And  yet  the  individual  sound  is  not,  properly  consid- 
ered, an  element  of  speech  at  all,  for  speech  is  a  signifi- 
cant function  and  the  sound  as  such  has  no  significance. 
It  happens  occasionally  that  the  single  sound  is  an  inde- 
pendently significant  element  (such  as  French  a  "has" 
and  a  "to"  or  Latin  i  "go!"),  but  such  cases  are  for- 
tuitous coincidences  between  individual  sound  and  sig- 
nificant word.  The  coincidence  is  apt  to  be  foi'tuitous 
not  only  in  theory  but  in  point  of  actual  historic  fact; 
thus,  the  instances  cited  are  merely  reduced  forms  of 
originally  fuller  phonetic  groups — Latin  liahct  and  ad 
and  Indo-European  ei  respectively.  If  language  is  a 
structure  and  if  the  significant  elements  of  language  are 
the  bricks  of  the  structure,  then  the  sounds  of  speech  can 
only  be  compared  to  the  unformed  and  unburnt  clay  of 

24 


THE  ELEMENTS  OF  SPEECH  25 

which  the  bricks  are  fashioned.  In  this  chapter  we  shall 
have  nothing  further  to  do  with  sounds  as  sounds. 

The  true,  significant  elements  of  language  are  gener- 
ally sequences  of  sounds  that  are  either  words,  significant 
parts  of  words,  or  word  groupings.  What  distinguishes 
each  of  these  elements  is  that  it  is  the  outward  sign  of 
a  specific  idea,  whether  of  a  single  concept  or  image  or 
of  a  number  of  such  concepts  or  images  definitely  con- 
nected into  a  whole.  The  single  word  may  or  may  not 
be  the  simplest  significant  element  we  have  to  deal  with. 
The  English  words  sing,  sings,  singing,  singer  each  con- 
veys a  perfectly  definite  and  intelligible  idea,  though 
the  idea  is  disconnected  and  is  therefore  functionally 
of  no  practical  value.  We  recognize  immediately  that 
these  words  are  of  two  sorts.  The  first  word,  sing,  is  an 
indivisible  phonetic  entity  conveying  the  notion  of  a 
certain  specific  activity.  The  other  words  all  involve 
the  same  fundamental  notion  but,  owing  to  the  addition 
of  other  phonetic  elements,  this  notion  is  given  a  par- 
ticular twist  that  modifies  or  more  closely  defines  it. 
They  represent,  in  a  sense,  compounded  concepts  that 
have  flowered  from  the  fundamental  one.  We  may, 
therefore,  analyze  the  words  sings,  singing,  and  singer 
as  binary  expressions  involving  a  fundamental  concept, 
a  concept  of  subject  matter  (sing),  and  a  further  con- 
cept of  more  abstract  order — one  of  person,  number, 
time,  condition,  function,  or  of  several  of  these  com- 
bined. 

If  we  symbolize  such  a  term  as  sing  by  the  algebraic 
formula  A,  we  shall  have  to  symbolize  such  terms  as 
sings  and  singer  by  the  formula  A  -\-b.^  The  element  A 
may  be  either  a  complete  and  independent  word  (sing) 
or  the   fundamental   substance,    the   so-called   root   or 

1  We  shall  reserve  capitals  for  radical  elements. 


2G  LANGUAGE 

stem  -  or  "radical  element"  (sing-)  of  a  word.  The  ele- 
ment b  (-S,  -ing,  -er)  is  the  indicator  of  a  subsidiary  and, 
as  a  rule,  a  more  abstract  concept ;  in  the  widest  sense 
of  the  word  ' '  form, ' '  it  puts  upon  the  fundamental  con- 
cept a  formal  limitation.  We  may  term  it  a  "  grammati- 
cal element"  or  affix.  As  we  shall  see  later  on,  the  gram- 
matical element  or  the  grammatical  increment,  as  we  had 
better  put  it,  need  not  be  suffixed  to  the  radical  ele- 
ment. It  may  be  a  prefixed  element  (like  the  un-  of 
unsingahle) ,  it  may  be  inserted  into  the  very  body  of 
the  stem  (like  the  n  of  the  Latin  vinco  "I  conquer"  as 
contrasted  with  its  absence  in  vici  "I  have  conquered"), 
it  may  be  the  complete  or  partial  repetition  of  the  stem, 
or  it  may  consist  of  some  modification  of  the  inner  form 
of  the  stem  (change  of  vowel,  as  in  sung  and  song; 
change  of  consonant  as  in  dead  and  death;  change  of 
accent;  actual  abbreviation).  Each  and  every  one  of 
these  types  of  grammatical  element  or  modification  has 
this  peculiarity,  that  it  may  not,  in  the  vast  majority 
of  cases,  be  used  independently  but  needs  to  be  somehow 
attached  to  or  welded  with  a  radical  element  in  order  to 
convey  an  intelligible  notion.  We  had  better,  there- 
fore, modify  our  formula,  A  -\-h,  to  A  -{-'  (h),  the  round 
brackets  symbolizing  the  incapacity  of  an  element  to 
stand  alone.  The  grammatical  element,  moreover,  is  not 
only  non-existent  except  as  associated  with  a  radical  one, 
it  does  not  even,  as  a  rule,  obtain  its  measure  of  signifi- 
cance unless  it  is  associated  with  a  particular  class  of 
radical  elements.  Thus,  the  -s  of  English  he  hits  sym- 
bolizes an  utterly  different  notion  from  the  -s  of  hooks, 
merely  because  hit  and  book  are  differently  classified  as 
to  function.  We  must  hasten  to  observe,  however,  that 
while  the  radical  element  may,  on  occasion,  be  identical 
2  These  words  are  not  here  used  in  a  narrowly  technical  sense. 


THE  ELEMENTS  OF  SPEECH  27 

with  the  word,  it  does  not  follow  that  it  may  always,  or 
even  customarily,  be  used  as  a  word.  Thus,  the  horU 
"garden"  of  such  Latin  forms  as  liortus,  horti,  and  liorto 
is  as  much  of  an  abstraction,  though  one  yielding  a  more 
easily  apprehended  significance,  than  the  -ing  of  singing. 
Neither  exists  as  an  independently  intelligible  and  sat- 
isfying element  of  speech.  Both  the  radical  element,  as 
such,  and  the  grammatical  element,  therefore,  are 
reached  only  by  a  process  of  abstraction.  It  seemed 
proper  to  symbolize  sing-er  as  A  -|-  (&)  ;  hort-us  must  be 
symbolized  as  (A)  +  (6). 

So  far,  the  first  speech  element  that  we  have  found 
which  we  can  say  actually  ' '  exists ' '  is  the  word.  Before 
defining  the  word,  however,  we  must  look  a  little  more 
closely  at  the  type  of  word  that  is  illustrated  by  sing. 
Are  we,  after  all,  justified  in  identifying  it  with  a 
radical  element  ?  Does  it  represent  a  simple  correspond- 
ence between  concept  and  linguistic  expression?  Is  the 
element  sing-,  that  we  have  abstracted  from  sings,  sing- 
ing, and  singer  and  to  which  we  may  justly  ascribe  a 
general  unmodified  conceptual  value,  actually  the  same 
linguistic  fact  as  the  word  singf  It  would  almost  seem 
absurd  to  doubt  it,  yet  a  little  reflection  only  is  needed 
to  convince  us  that  the  doubt  is  entirely  legitimate.  The 
word  sing  cannot,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  be  freely  used  to 
refer  to  its  own  conceptual  content.  The  existence  of 
such  evidently  related  forms  as  sang  and  sung  at  once 
shows  that  it  cannot  refer  to  past  time,  but  that,  for 
at  least  an  important  part  of  its  range  of  usage,  it  is  lim- 
ited to  the  present.  On  the  other  hand,  the  use  of  sing 
as  an  "infinitive"  (in  such  locutions  as  to  sing  and  he 
will  sing)  does  indicate  that  there  is  a  fairly  strong 
tendency  for  the  word  sing  to  represent  the  full,  untram- 
meled  amplitude  of  a  specific  concept.     Yet  if  sing  were. 


23  LANGUAGE 

in  any  adequate  sense,  the  fixed  expression  of  the  un- 
modified concept,  there  should  be  no  room  for  such  vo- 
calic aberrations  as  we  find  in  sa7ig  and  simg  and  song, 
nor  should  we  find  sing  specifically  used  to  indicate  preS' 
ent  time  for  all  persons  but  one  (third  person  singular 
sings). 

The  truth  of  the  matter  is  that  sing  is  a  kind  of  twi- 
light word,  trembling  between  the  status  of  a  true  radical 
element  and  that  of  a  modified  word  of  the  type  of  sing- 
ing. Though  it  has  no  outward  sign  to  indicate  that  it 
conveys  more  than  a  generalized  idea,  we  do  feel  that 
there  hangs  about  it  a  variable  mist  of  added  value. 
The  formula  A  does  not  seem  to  represent  it  so  well  as 
A.  -j-  (0).  We  might  suspect  sing  of  belonging  to  the 
A +(6)  type,  with  the  reservation  that  the  (&)  had 
vanished.  This  report  of  the  ''feel"  of  the  word  is  far 
from  fanciful,  for  historical  evidence  does,  in  all  earnest, 
show  that  sing  is  in  origin  a  number  of  quite  distinct 
words,  of  type  A  -\-  (h),  that  have  pooled  their  separate 
values.  The  (&)  of  each  of  these  has  gone  as  a  tangible 
phonetic  element ;  its  force,  however,  lingers  on  in  weak- 
ened measure.  The  sing  of  /  sing  is  the  correspondent  of 
the  Anglo-Saxon  singe;  the  infinitive  sing,  of  singan; 
the  imperative  sing  of  sing.  Ever  since  the  breakdown 
of  English  forms  that  set  in  about  the  time  of  the 
Norman  Conquest,  our  language  has  been  straining 
towards  the  creation  of  simple  concept-words,  unalloyed 
by  formal  connotations,  but  it  has  not  yet  succeeded 
in  this,  apart,  possibly,  from  isolated  adverbs  and  other 
elements  of  that  sort.  Were  the  typical  unanalyzable 
word  of  the  language  truly  a  pure  concept-word  (typ^ 
A)  instead  of  being  of  a  strangely  transitional  type 
(type  A  -\-  [0] ),  our  sing  and  work  and  hoiise  and  thou 
sands  of  others  would  compare  with  the  genuine  radical- 


THE  ELEMENTS  OF  SPEECH  29 

words  of  numerous  other  languages.^  Such  a  radical- 
word,  to  take  a  random  example,  is  the  Nootka*  word 
Jianiot  "bone."  Our  English  correspondent  is  only  su- 
perficially comparable.  Hamot  means  ' '  bone  "  in  a  quite 
indefinite  sense ;  to  our  English  word  clings  the  notion 
of  singularity.  The  Nootka  Indian  can  convey  the  idea 
of  plurality,  in  one  of  several  ways,  if  he  so  desires,  but 
he  does  not  need  to ;  Jiamot  may  do  for  either  singular 
or  plural,  should  no  interest  happen  to  attach  to  the  dis- 
tinction. As  soon  as  we  say  "bone"  (aside  from  its 
secondary  usage  to  indicate  material),  we  not  merely 
specify  the  nature  of  the  object  but  we  imply,  whether 
we  will  or  no,  that  there  is  but  one  of  these  objects  to 
be  considered.  And  this  increment  of  value  makes  all 
the  difference. 

We  now  know  of  four  distinct  formal  types  of  word: 
A  (Nootka  liamot)  ;  A  -\-  (0)  {sing,hone)  ;  A  -\-  (h) 
(singing)  ;  (A)  +  (&)  (Latin  hortus).  There  is  but 
one  other  type  that  is  fundamentally  possible :  A  -{-  B, 
the  union  of  two  (or  more)  independently  occurring 
radical  elements  into  a  single  term.  Such  a  word  is  the 
compound  fire-engine  or  a  Sioux  form  equivalent  to 
eat-stand  (i.e.,  "to  eat  while  standing").  It  frequently 
happens,  however,  that  one  of  the  radical  elements  be- 
comes functionally  so  subordinated  to  the  other  that  it 
takes  on  the  character  of  a  grammatical  element.  We 
may  symbolize  this  by  A  -|-  &,  a  type  that  may  gradually, 
by  loss  of  external  connection  between  the  subordinated 
element  b  and  its  independent  counterpart  B  merge 
with  the  commoner  type  A  -j-  (&)•     A  word  like  heauti- 

3  It  is  not  a  question  of  the  general  isolating  character  of  such 
languages  as  Chinese  ( see  Chapter  VI ) .  Radical-words  may  and 
do  occur  in  languages  of  all  varieties,  many  of  them  of  a  high 
degree  of  complexity. 

4  Spoken  by  a  group  of  Indian  tribes  in  Vancouver  Island. 


30  LANGUAGE 

fill  is  an  example  of  A  -]-b,  the  -fid  barely  preserving 
the  impress  of  its  lineage.  A  word  like  Jiomely,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  clearly  of  the  type  A  -{-'  (h),  for  no  one 
but  a  linguistic  student  is  aware  of  the  connection  be- 
tween the  -ly  and  the  independent  word  like. 

In  actual  use,  of  course,  these  five  (or  six)  funda- 
mental types  may  be  indefinitely  complicated  in  a  num- 
ber of  ways.  The  (0)  may  have  a  multiple  value;  in 
other  words,  the  inherent  formal  modification  of  the 
basic  notion  of  the  word  may  affect  more  than  one  cate- 
gory. In  such  a  Latin  word  as  cor  "heart,"  for  in- 
stance, not  only  is  a  concrete  concept  conveyed,  but  there 
cling  to  the  form,  which  is  actually  shorter  than  its  own 
radical  element  (cord-),  the  three  distinct,  yet  inter- 
twined, formal  concepts  of  singularity,  gender  classifica- 
tion (neuter),  and  case  (subjective-objective).  The 
complete  grammatical  formula  for  cor  is,  then,  A  -\-  (0) 
+  (0)  +  W,  though  the  merely  external,  phonetic 
formula  would  be  (A)—,  (A)  indicating  the  abstracted 
"stem"  cord;  the  minus  sign  a  loss  of  material.  The 
significant  thing  about  such  a  word  as  cor  is  that  the 
three  conceptual  limitations  are  not  merely  expressed  by 
implication  as  the  word  sinks  into  place  in  a  sentence; 
they  are  tied  up,  for  good  and  all,  within  the  very  vitals 
of  the  word  and  cannot  be  eliminated  by  any  possibility 
of  usage. 

Other  complications  result  from  a  manifolding  of 
parts.  In  a  given  word  there  may  be  several  elements 
of  the  order  A  (we  have  already  symbolized  this  by  the 
type  A-\-' B),  of  the  order  (A),  of  the  order  h,  and  of 
the  order  (&).  Finally,  the  various  types  may  be  com- 
bined among  themselves  in  endless  ways.  A  compara- 
tively simple  language  like  English,  or  even  Latin,  illus- 
trates but  a  modest  proportion  of  these  theoretical  possi* 


THE  ELEMENTS  OF  SPEECH  31 

bilities.  But  if  we  take  our  examples  freely  from  the 
vast  storehouse  of  language,  from  languages  exotic  as 
well  as  from  those  that  we  are  more  familiar  with, 
we  shall  find  that  there  is  hardly  a  possibility  that  is 
not  realized  in  actual  usage.  One  example  will  do  for 
thousands,  one  complex  type  for  hundreds  of  possible 
types.  I  select  it  from  Paiute,  the  language  of  the  In- 
dians of  the  arid  plateaus  of  southwestern  Utah.  The 
W'ord  wii-to-kuclium-punku-ruga7ii-yiigwi-va-ntu-in{u)  ^ 
is  of  unusual  length  even  for  its  own  language,  but  it  is 
no  psychological  monster  for  all  that.  It  means  "they 
who  are  going  to  sit  and  cut  up  with  a  knife  a  black  cow 
{or  bull),"  or,  in  the  order  of  the  Indian  elements, 
"knife-black-buffalo-pet-cut  up-sit(plur.)  -future -parti- 
ciple-animate plur."  The  formula  for  this  word,  in  ac- 
cordance with  our  symbolism,  would  be  {F  )-\-  (E)  -{-  C 
+  cZ-|-A-f  B+(^)  4-(70  +(0  +  (0).  It  is  the 
plural  of  the  future  participle  of  a  compound  verb  "to 
sit  and  cut  up" — A -\- B.  The  elements  (g) — which 
denotes  futurity — ,  (7i) — a  participial  suffix — ,  and  (i) 
— indicating  the  animate  plural — are  grammatical  ele- 
ments which  convey  nothing  when  detached.  The 
formula  (0)  is  intended  to  imply  that  the  finished  word 
conveys,  in  addition  to  what  is  definitely  expressed,  a 
further  relational  idea,  that  of  subjectivity;  in  other 
words,  the  form  can  only  be  used  as  the  subject  of  a 
sentence,  not  in  an  objective  or  other  syntactic  relation. 
The  radical  element  A  ("to  cut  up"),  before  entering 
into  combination  with  the  coordinate  element  B  ("to 
sit"),  is  itself  compounded  with  two  nominal  elements 
or  element-groups — an  instrumentally   used   stem    {F) 

5  In  this  and  other  examples  taken  from  exotic  languages  1  am 
forced  by  practical  considerations  to  simplify  the  actual  phonetic 
forms.  This  should  not  matter  perceptibly,  as  we  are  concerned 
with  form  as  such,  not  with  phonetic  content. 


32  LANGUAGE 

C knife"),  which  may  be  freely  used  as  the  radical 
element  of  noun  forms  but  cannot  be  employed  as  an 
absolute  noun  in  its  given  form,  and  an  objectively  used 
group— (^)  -h  C  +  (Z  ("black  cow  or  bull").  This 
group  in  turn  consists  of  an  adjectival  radical  element 
(E)  ("black"),  which  cannot  be  independently  em- 
ployed (the  absolute  notion  of  "black"  can  be  rendered 
only  as  the  participle  of  a  verb:  "black-be-ing"),  and 
the  compound  noun  C  -{- d  ("buffalo-pet").  The  radi- 
cal element  C  properly  means  "buffalo,"  but  the  ele- 
ment d,  properly  an  independently  occurring  noun  mean- 
ing "horse"  (originally  "dog"  or  "domesticated  ani- 
mal" in  general),  is  regularly  used  as  a  quasi-subordi- 
nate element  indicating  that  the  animal  denoted  by  the 
stem  to  which  it  is  ai^xed  is  owned  by  a  human  being. 
It  will  be  observed  that  the  whole  complex  (F)  -\-  (E) 
-\-'  C  -\-  d  -\-  A  -\-  B  is  functionally  no  more  than  a  verba] 
base,  corresponding  to  the  sing-  of  an  English  form  like 
singing;  that  this  complex  remains  verbal  in  force  on 
the  addition  of  the  temporal  element  (g) — this  (g),  by 
the  way,  must  not  be  understood  as  appended  to  B 
alone,  but  to  the  whole  basic  complex  as  a  unit — ;  and 
that  the  elements  (li)  -|-  (*)  +  (0)  transform  the  verbal 
expression  into  a  formally  well-defined  noun. 

It  is  high  time  that  we  decided  just  what  is  meant  by 
a  word.  Our  first  impulse,  no  doubt,  would  have  been 
to  define  the  word  as  the  symbolic,  linguistic  counterpart 
of  a  single  concept.  We  now  know  that  such  a  defini- 
tion is  impossible.  In  truth  it  is  impossible  to  define 
the  word  from  a  functional  standpoint  at  all,  for  the 
word  may  be  anything  from  the  expression  of  a  single 
concept — concrete  or  abstract  or  purely  relational  (as 
in  of  or  by  or  and) — to  the  expression  of  a  complete 


THE  ELEMENTS  OF  SPEECH  33 

thought  (as  in  Latin  dico  "I  say"  or,  with  greater  elabo- 
rateness of  form,  in  a  Nootka  verb  form  denoting  "I 
have  been  accustomed  to  eat  twenty  round  objects  [e.g., 
apples]  while  engaged  in  [doing  so  and  so]").  In  the 
latter  case  the  word  becomes  identical  with  the  sentence. 
The  word  is  merely  a  form,  a  definitely  molded  entity 
that  takes  in  as  much  or  as  little  of  the  conceptual  mate- 
rial of  the  whole  thought  as  the  genius  of  the  language 
cares  to  allow.  Thus  it  is  that  while  the  single  radical 
elements  and  grammatical  elements,  the  carriers  of  iso- 
lated concepts,  are  comparable  as  we  pass  from  language 
to  language,  the  finished  words  are  not.  Radical  (or 
grammatical)  element  and  sentence — these  are  the  pri- 
mary functional  units  of  speech,  the  former  as  an  ab- 
stracted minimum,  the  latter  as  the  esthetically  satisfy- 
ing embodiment  of  a  unified  thought.  The  actual  formal 
units  of  speech,  the  words,  may  on  occasion  identify 
themselves  with  either  of  the  two  functional  units ;  more 
often  they  mediate  between  the  two  extremes,  embody- 
ing one  or  more  radical  notions  and  also  one  or  more 
subsidiary  ones.  We  may  put  the  whole  matter  in  a 
nutshell  by  saying  that  the  radical  and  grammatical 
elements  of  language,  abstracted  as  they  are  from  the 
realities  of  speech,  respond  to  the  conceptual  world  of 
science,  abstracted  as  it  is  from  the  realities  of  experi- 
ence, and  that  the  word,  the  existent  unit  of  living 
speech,  responds  to  the  unit  of  actually  apprehended  ex- 
perience, of  history,  of  art.  The  sentence  is  the  logical 
counterpart  of  the  complete  thought  only  if  it  be  felt  as 
made  up  of  the  radical  and  grammatical  elements  that 
lurk  in  the  recesses  of  its  words.  It  is  the  psychological 
counterpart  of  experience,  of  art,  when  it  is  felt,  as  in- 
deed it  normally  is,  as  the  finished  play  of  word  with 


34  LANGUAGE 

word.  As  the  necessity  of  defining  thought  solely  and 
exclusively  for  its  own  sake  becomes  more  urgent,  the 
word  becomes  increasingly  irrelevant  as  a  means.  We 
can  therefore  easily  understand  why  the  mathematician 
and  the  symbolic  logician  are  driven  to  discard  the 
word  and  to  build  up  their  thought  with  the  help  of  sym- 
bols which  have,  each  of  them,  a  rigidly  unitary  value. 
But  is  not  the  word,  one  may  object,  as  much  of  an 
abstraction  as  the  radical  element?  Is  it  not  as  arbi- 
trarily lifted  out  of  the  living  sentence  as  is  the  mini- 
mum conceptual  element  out  of  the  word?  Some  stu- 
dents of  language  have,  indeed,  looked  upon  the  word 
as  such  an  abstraction,  though  with  very  doubtful  war- 
rant, it  seems  to  me.  It  is  true  that  in  particular  cases, 
especially  in  some  of  the  highly  synthetic  languages  of 
aboriginal  America,  it  is  not  always  easy  to  say  whether 
a  particular  element  of  language  is  to  be  interpreted  as 
an  independent  word  or  as  part  of  a  larger  word.  These 
transitional  cases,  puzzling  as  they  may  be  on  occasion, 
do  not,  however,  materially  weaken  the  case  for  the  psy- 
chological validity  of  the  word.  Linguistic  experience, 
both  as  expressed  in  standardized,  written  form  and  as 
tested  in  daily  usage,  indicates  overwhelmingly  that 
there  is  not,  as  a  rule,  the  slightest  difficulty  in  bringing 
the  word  to  consciousness  as  a  psychological  reality.  No 
more  convincing  test  could  be  desired  than  this,  that 
the  naive  Indian,  quite  unaccustomed  to  the  concept  of 
the  written  word,  has  nevertheless  no  serious  difficulty 
in  dictating  a  text  to  a  linguistic  student  word  by  word ; 
he  tends,  of  course,  to  run  his  words  together  as  in  actual 
speech,  but  if  he  is  called  to  a  halt  and  is  made  to  under- 
stand what  is  desired,  he  can  readily  isolate  the  words 
as  such,  repeating  them  as  units.  He  regularly  refuses, 
on  the  other  hand,  to  isolate  the  radical  or  grammatical 


THE  ELEMENTS  OF  SPEECH  35 

element,  on  the  ground  that  it ' '  makes  no  sense. ' '  ^  What, 
then,  is  the  objective  criterion  of  the  word?  The  speaker 
and  hearer  feel  the  word,  let  us  grant,  but  how  shall 
we  justify  their  feeling?  If  function  is  not  the  ulti- 
mate criterion  of  the  word,  what  is? 

It  is  easier  to  ask  the  question  than  to  answer  it.  The 
best  that  we  can  do  is  to  say  that  the  word  is  one  of  the 
smallest,  completely  satisfying  bits  of  isolated  "mean- 
ing" into  which  the  sentence  resolves  itself.  It  cannot 
be  cut  into  without  a  disturbance  of  meaning,  one  or  the 
other  or  both  of  the  severed  parts  remaining  as  a  help- 
less waif  on  our  hands.  In  practice  this  unpretentious 
criterion  does  better  service  than  might  be  supposed. 
In  such  a  sentence  as  It  is  untJiinkahle,  it  is  simply  im- 
possible to  group  the  elements  into  any  other  and  smaller 
"words"  than  the  three  indicated.  Tliink  or  thinkable 
might  be  isolated,  but  as  neither  un-  nor  -able  nor  is-un 
yields  a  measurable  satisfaction,  we  are  compelled  to 
leave  unthinkable  as  an  integral  whole,  a  miniature  bit 
of  art.  Added  to  the  "feel"  of  the  word  are  frequently, 
but  by  no  means  invariably,  certain  external  phonetic 

6  These  oral  experiences,  whch  I  have  had  time  and  again  as 
a  field  student  of  American  Indian  languages,  are  very  neatly 
confirmed  by  personal  experiences  of  another  sort.  Twice  I  have 
taught  intelligent  young  Indians  to  write  their  own  languages 
according  to  the  phonetic  system  which  I  employ.  They  were 
taught  merely  how  to  render  accurately  the  sounds  as  such.  Both 
had  some  difficulty  in  learning  to  break  up  a  word  into  its  con- 
stituent sounds,  but  none  whatever  in  determining  the  words.  This 
they  both  did  with  spontaneous  and  complete  accuracy.  In  the 
hundreds  of  pages  of  manuscript  NootKa  text  that  I  have  ob- 
tained from  one  of  these  young  Indians  the  words,  whether  ab- 
stract relational  entities  like  English  that  and  but  or  complex 
sentence-words  like  the  Nootka  example  quoted  above,  are,  prac- 
tically without  exception,  isolated  precisely  as  I  or  any  other 
student  would  have  isolated  them.  Such  experiences  with  naive 
speakers  and  recorders  do  more  to  convince  one  of  the  definitely 
plastic  unity  of  the  word  than  any  amount  of  purely  theoretical 
argument. 


36  LANGUAGE 

characteristics.  Chief  of  these  is  accent.  In  many,  per- 
haps in  most,  languages  the  single  word  is  marked  by 
a  unifying  accent,  an  emphasis  on  one  of  the  syllables, 
to  which  the  rest  are  subordinated.  The  particular  sylla- 
ble that  is  to  be  so  distinguished  is  dependent,  needless 
to  say,  on  the  special  genius  of  the  language.  The  im- 
portance of  accent  as  a  unifying  feature  of  the  word  is 
obvious  in  such  English  examples  as  untJiinkahle,  char- 
acterizing. The  long  Paiute  word  that  we  have  analyzed 
is  marked  as  a  rigid  phonetic  unit  by  several  features, 
chief  of  which  are  the  accent  on  its  second  syllable  {wii'- 
" knife")  and  the  slurring  ("unvoicing,"  to  use  the 
technical  phonetic  term)  of  its  final  vowel  (-mii,  animate 
plural) .  Such  features  as  accent,  cadence,  and  the  treat- 
ment of  consonants  and  vowels  within  the  body  of  a  word 
are  often  useful  as  aids  in  the  external  demarcation  of 
the  word,  but  they  must  by  no  means  be  interpreted,  as 
is  sometimes  done,  as  themselves  responsible  for  its  psy- 
chological existence.  They  at  best  but  strengthen  a  feel- 
ing of  unity  that  is  already  present  on  other  grounds. 
We  have  already  seen  that  the  major  functional  unit 
of  speech,  the  sentence,  has,  like  the  word,  a  psychologi- 
cal as  well  as  a  merely  logical  or  abstracted  existence. 
Its  definition  is  not  difficult.  It  is  the  linguistic  ex- 
pression of  a  proposition.  It  combines  a  subject  of  dis- 
course with  a  statement  in  regard  to  this  subject.  Sub- 
ject and  "predicate"  may  be  combined  in  a  single  word, 
as  in  Latin  dico;  each  may  be  expressed  independently, 
as  in  the  English  equivalent,  /  say;  each  or  either  may 
be  so  qualified  as  to  lead  to  complex  propositions  of  many 
sorts.  No  matter  how  many  of  these  qualifying  elements 
(words  or  functional  parts  of  words)  are  introduced,  the 
sentence  does  not  lose  its  feeling  of  unity  so  long  as  each 
and  every  one  of  them  falls  in  place  as  contributory 


THE  ELEMENTS  OF  SPEECH  37 

to  the  definition  of  either  the  subject  of  discourse  or  the 
core  of  the  predicate.^  Such  a  sentence  as  Tlie  mayor  of 
New  York  is  goitig  to  deliver  a  speech  of  welcome  i>* 
FrencJi  is  readily  felt  as  a  unified  statement,  incapable 
of  reduction  by  the  transfer  of  certain  of  its  elements, 
in  their  given  form,  to  the  preceding  or  following  sen- 
tences. The  contributory  ideas  of  of  New  York,  of  wel- 
come, and  in  French  may  be  eliminated  without  hurting 
the  idiomatic  flow  of  the  sentence.  The  mayor  is  going 
to  deliver  a  speech  is  a  perfectly  intelligible  proposition. 
But  further  than  this  we  cannot  go  in  the  process  of  re- 
duction. We  cannot  say,  for  instance,  Mayor  is  going  to 
deliver.^  The  reduced  sentence  resolves  itself  into  the 
subject  of  discourse — the  mayor — and  the  predicate — is 
going  to  deliver  a  speech.  It  is  customary  to  say  that 
the  true  subject  of  such  a  sentence  is  mayor,  the  true 
predicate  is  going  or  even  is,  the  other  elements  being 
strictly  subordinate.  Such  an  analysis,  however,  is 
purely  schematic  and  is  without  psychological  value.  It 
is  much  better  frankly  to  recognize  the  fact  that  either 
or  both  of  the  two  terms  of  the  sentence-proposition 
may  be  incapable  of  expression  in  the  form  of  single 
words.  There  are  languages  that  can  convey  all  that 
is  conveyed  by  Tlie-mayor  is-going-to-deliver-a-speech  in 
two  w^ords,  a  subject  word  and  a  predicate  word,  but 
English  is  not  so  highly  synthetic.  The  point  that  we 
are  really  making  here  is  that  underlying  the  finished 

7  "Cooidinate  sentences"  like  /  shall  remain  but  you  may  go  may 
only  doubtfully  be  consi  ered  as  truly  unified  predications,  as  true 
sentences.  They  are  sentences  in  a  stylistic  sense  rather  than 
from  the  strictly  formal  linguistic  standpoint.  The  orthography 
/  shall  remain.  But  you  may  go  is  as  intrinsically  justified  as 
/  shall  remain.  Noio  you  may  go.  The  closer  connection  in  senti- 
ment between  the  first  two  propositions  has  led  to  a  conventional 
visual  representation  that  must  not  deceive  the  analytic  spirit. 

8  Except,  possibly,  in  a  newspaper  headline.  Such  headlines, 
however,  are  language  only  in  a  derived  sense. 


38  LANGUAGE 

sentence  is  a  living  sentence  type,  of  fixed  formal  char- 
acteristics. These  fixed  types  or  actual  sentence-ground- 
works may  be  freely  overlaid  by  such  additional  matter 
as  the  speaker  or  writer  cares  to  put  on,  but  they  are 
themselves  as  rigidly  "given"  by  tradition  as  are  the 
radical  and  grammatical  elements  abstracted  from  the 
finished  word.  New  words  may  be  consciously  created 
from  these  fundamental  elements  on  the  analogy  of  old 
ones,  but  hardly  new  types  of  words.  In  the  same  way 
new  sentences  are  being  constantly  created,  but  always 
on  strictly  traditional  lines.  The  enlarged  sentence,  how- 
ever, allows  as  a  rule  of  considerable  freedom  in  the 
handling  of  what  may  be  called  "unessential"  parts.  It 
is  this  margin  of  freedom  which  gives  us  the  opportunity 
of  individual  style. 

The  habitual  association  of  radical  elements,  gram- 
matical elements,  words,  and  sentences  with  concepts 
or  groups  of  concepts  related  into  wholes  is  the  fact 
itself  of  language.  It  is  important  to  note  that  there 
is  in  all  languages  a  certain  randomness  of  association. 
Thus,  the  idea  of  "hide"  may  be  also  expressed  by  the 
word  "conceal,"  the  notion  of  "three  times"  also  by 
"thrice."  The  multiple  expression  of  a  single  concept 
is  universally  felt  as  a  source  of  linguistic  strength  and 
variety,  not  as  a  needless  extravagance.  More  irksome 
is  a  random  correspondence  between  idea  and  linguistic 
expression  in  the  field  of  abstract  and  relational  con- 
cepts, particularly  when  the  concept  is  embodied  in  a 
grammatical  element.  Thus,  the  randomness  of  the 
expression  of  plurality  in  such  words  as  hooks,  oxen, 
sheep,  and  geese  is  felt  to  be  rather  more,  I  fancy,  an 
unavoidable  and  traditional  predicament  than  a  welcome 
luxuriance.  It  is  obvious  that  a  language  cannot  go 
beyond  a  certain  point  in  this  randomness.    Many  Ian- 


THE  ELEMENTS  OF  SPEECH  39 

guages  go  incredibly  far  in  this  respect,  it  is  true,  but 
linguistic  history  shows  conclusively  that  sooner  or  later 
the  less  frequently  occurring  associations  are  ironed  out 
at  the  expense  of  the  more  vital  ones.  In  other  words, 
all  languages  have  an  inherent  tendency  to  economy  of 
expression.  Were  this  tendency  entirely  inoperative, 
there  would  be  no  grammar.  The  fact  of  grammar,  a 
universal  trait  of  language,  is  simply  a  generalized  ex- 
pression of  the  feeling  that  analogous  concepts  and  rela- 
tions are  most  conveniently  symbolized  in  analogous 
forms.  Were  a  language  ever  completely  "grammati- 
cal," it  would  be  a  perfect  engine  of  conceptual  expres- 
sion. Unfortunately,  or  luckily,  no  language  is  tyranni- 
cally consistent.  All  grammars  leak.  ^ 
Up  to  the  present  we  have  been  assuming  that  the 
material  of  language  reflects  merely  the  world  of  con- 
cepts and,  on  what  I  have  ventured  to  call  the  "pre- 
rational"  plane,  of  images,  which  are  the  raw  mate- 
rial of  concepts.  We  have,  in  other  words,  been  assum- 
ing that  language  moves  entirely  in  the  ideational  or 
cognitive  sphere.  It  is  time  that  we  amplified  the  pic- 
ture. The  volitional  aspect  of  consciousness  also  is 
to  some  extent  explicitly  provided  for  in  language. 
Nearly  all  languages  have  special  means  for  the  expres- 
sion of  commands  (in  the  imperative  forms  of  the  verb, 
for  example)  and  of  desires,  unattained  or  unattainable 
(Would  he  might  come!  or  Would  he  were  here!)  The 
emotions,  on  the  whole,  seem  to  be  given  a  less  adequate 
outlet.  Emotion,  indeed,  is  proverbially  inclined  to 
speechlessness.  Most,  if  not  all,  the  interjections  are 
to  be  put  to  the  credit  of  emotional  expression,  also,  it 
may  be,  a  number  of  linguistic  elements  expressing  cer- 
tain modalities,  such  as  dubitative  or  potential  forms, 
which  may  be  interpreted  as  reflecting  the  emotional 


40  LANGUAGE 

states  of  hesitation  or  doubt — attenuated  fear.  On  the 
whole,  it  must  be  admitted  that  ideation  reigns  supreme 
in  language,  that  volition  and  emotion  come  in  as  dis- 
tinctly secondary  factors.  This,  after  all,  is  perfectly 
intelligible.  The  world  of  image  and  concept,  the  end- 
less and  ever-shifting  picture  of  objective  reality,  is  the 
unavoidable  subject-matter  of  human  communication, 
for  it  is  only,  or  mainly,  in  terms  of  this  world  that 
effective  action  is  possible.  Desire,  purpose,  emotion  are 
the  personal  color  of  the  objective  world;  they  are  ap- 
plied privately  by  the  individual  soul  and  are  of  rela- 
tively little  importance  to  the  neighboring  one.  All 
this  does  not  mean  that  volition  and  emotion  are  not 
expressed.  They  are,  strictly  speaking,  never  absent 
from  normal  speech,  but  their  expression  is  not  of  a 
truly  linguistic  nature.  The  nuances  of  emphasis,  tone, 
and  phrasing,  the  varying  speed  and  continuity  of  utter- 
ance, the  accompanying  bodily  movements,  all  these 
express  something  of  the  inner  life  of  impulse  and 
feeling,  but  as  these  means  of  expression  are,  at  last 
analysis,  but  modified  forms  of  the  instinctive  utterance 
that  man  shares  with  the  lower  animals,  they  cannot 
be  considered  as  forming  part  of  the  essential  cultural 
conception  of  language,  however  much  they  may  be  in- 
separable from  its  actual  life.  And  this  instinctive  ex- 
pression of  volition  and  emotion  is,  for  the  most  part, 
sufficient,  often  more  than  sufficient,  for  the  purposes 
of  communication. 

There  are,  it  is  true,  certain  writers  on  the  psychology 
of  language  ^  who  deny  its  prevailingly  cognitive  char- 
acter but  attempt,  on  the  contrary,  to  demonstrate  the 
origin  of  most  linguistic  elements  within  the  domain 
of  feeling.     I  confess  that  I  am  utterly  unable  to  follow 

»  E.g.,  the  brilliant  Dutch  writer,  Jac  van  Ginneken. 


THE  ELEMENTS  OF  SPEECH  41 

them.  What  there  is  of  truth  in  their  contentions  may 
be  summed  up,  it  seems  to  me,  by  saying  that  most  words, 
like  practically  all  elements  of  consciousness,  have  an 
associated  feeling-tone,  a  mild,  yet  none  the  less  real 
and  at  times  insidiously  powerful,  derivative  of  pleas- 
ure or  pain.  This  feeling-tone,  however,  is  not  as  a  rule 
an  inherent  value  in  the  word  itself ;  it  is  rather  a  senti- 
mental growth  on  the  word's  true  body,  on  its  conceptual 
kernel.  Not  only  may  the  feeling-tone  change  from  one 
age  to  another  (this,  of  course,  is  true  of  the  conceptual 
content  as  well),  but  it  varies  remarkably  from  indi- 
vidual to  individual  according  to  the  personal  associa- 
tions of  each,  varies,  indeed,  from  time  to  time  in  a 
single  individual's  consciousness  as  his  experiences  mold 
him  and  his  moods  change.  To  be  sure,  there  are  so- 
cially accepted  feeling-tones,  or  ranges  of  feeling-tone, 
for  many  words  over  and  above  the  force  of  individual 
association,  but  they  are  exceedingly  variable  and  elusive 
things  at  best.  They  rarely  have  the  rigidity  of  the 
central,  primary  fact.  "We  all  grant,  for  instance,  that 
storm,  teTTipest,  and  liurricane,  quite  aside  from  their 
slight  differences  of  actual  meaning,  have  distinct  feel- 
ing-tones, tones  that  are  felt  by  all  sensitive  speakers  and 
readers  of  English  in  a  roughly  equivalent  fashion. 
Storm,  we  feel,  is  a  more  general  and  a  decidedly  less 
"magnificent"  word  than  the  other  two;  tempest  is  not 
only  associated  with  the  sea  but  is  likely,  in  the  minds 
of  many,  to  have  obtained  a  softened  glamour  from  a 
specific  association  with  Shakespeare's  great  play;  Jiur- 
ricane  has  a  greater  forthrightness,  a  directer  ruthless- 
ness  than  its  synonyms.  Yet  the  individual's  feeling- 
tones  for  these  words  are  likely  to  vary  enormously.  To 
some  tempest  and  hurricane  may  seem  "soft,"  literary 
words,  the  simpler  storm  having  a  fresh,  rugged  value 


42  LANGUAGE 

which  the  others  do  not  possess  (think  of  storm  and 
stress).  If  we  have  browsed  much  in  our  childhood 
days  in  books  of  the  Spanish  Main,  liurricane  is  likely 
to  have  a  pleasurably  bracing  tone ;  if  we  have  had  the 
misfortune  to  be  caught  in  one,  we  are  not  unlikely  to 
feel  the  word  as  cold,  cheerless,  sinister. 

The  feeling-tones  of  words  are  of  no  use,  strictly 
speaking,  to  science ;  the  philosopher,  if  he  desires  to 
arrive  at  truth  rather  than  merely  to  persuade,  finds 
them  his  most  insidious  enemies.  But  man  is  rarely  en- 
gaged in  pure  science,  in  solid  thinking.  Generally  his 
mental  activities  are  bathed  in  a  warm  current  of  feel- 
ing and  he  seizes  upon  the  feeling-tones  of  words  as 
gentle  aids  to  the  desired  excitation.  They  are  natu- 
rally of  great  value  to  the  literary  artist.  It  is  inter- 
esting to  note,  however,  that  even  to  the  artist  they  are 
a  danger.  A  word  whose  customary  feeling-tone  is  too 
unquestioningly  accepted  becomes  a  plushy  bit  of  fur- 
niture, a  cliche.  Every  now  and  then  the  artist  has  to 
fight  the  feeling-tone,  to  get  the  word  to  mean  what  it 
nakedly  and  conceptually  should  mean,  depending  for 
the  effect  of  feeling  on  the  creative  power  of  an  indi- 
vidual juxtaposition  of  concepts  or  images. 


Ill 

THE  SOUNDS  OF  LANGUAGE 

"We  have  seen  that  the  mere  phonetic  framework  of 
speech  does  not  constitute  the  inner  fact  of  language 
and  that  the  single  sound  of  articulated  speech  is  not, 
as  such,  a  linguistic  element  at  all.  For  all  that,  speech 
is  so  inevitably  bound  up  with  sounds  and  their  articu- 
lation that  we  can  hardly  avoid  giving  the  subject  of 
phonetics  some  general  consideration.  Experience  has 
shown  that  neither  the  purely  formal  aspects  of  a 
language  nor  the  course  of  its  history  can  be  fully 
understood  without  reference  to  the  sounds  in  which 
this  form  and  this  history  are  embodied.  A  detailed 
survey  of  phonetics  would  be  both  too  technical  for 
the  general  reader  and  too  loosely  related  to  our  main 
theme  to  warrant  the  needed  space,  but  we  can  well 
afford  to  consider  a  few  outstanding  facts  and  ideas  con- 
nected with  the  sounds  of  language. 

The  feeling  that  the  average  speaker  has  of  his  lan- 
guage is  that  it  is  built  up,  acoustically  speaking,  of 
a  comparatively  small  number  of  distinct  sounds,  each 
of  which  is  rather  accurately  provided  for  in  the  current 
alphabet  by  one  letter  or,  in  a  few  cases,  by  two  or  more 
alternative  letters.  As  for  the  languages  of  foreigners, 
he  generally  feels  that,  aside  from  a  few  striking  dif- 
ferences that  cannot  escape  even  the  uncritical  ear,  the 
sounds  they  use  are  the  same  as  those  he  is  familiar  with 
but  that  there  is  a  mysterious  "accent"  to  these  foreign 
languages,  a  certain  unanalyzed  phonetic  character,  apart 

43 


44  LANGUAGE 

from  the  sounds  as  such,  that  gives  them  their  air  of 
strangeness.  This  naive  feeling  is  largely  illusory  on 
both  scores.  Phonetic  analysis  convinces  one  that  the 
number  of  clearly  distinguishable  sounds  and  nuances 
of  sounds  that  are  habitually  employed  by  the  speakers 
of  a  language  is  far  greater  than  they  themselves  recog- 
nize. Probably  not  one  English  speaker  out  of  a  hun- 
dred has  the  remotest  idea  that  the  ^  of  a  word  like  sting 
is  not  at  all  the  same  sound  as  the  t  of  teem,  the  latter 
t  having  a  fullness  of  "breath  release"  that  is  inhibited 
in  the  former  ease  by  the  preceding  s;  that  the  ea  of 
meat  is  of  perceptibly  shorter  duration  than  the  ea  of 
mead;  or  that  the  final  s  of  a  word  like  heads  is  not  the 
full,  buzzing  z  sound  of  the  s  in  such  a  word  as  please. 
It  is  the  frequent  failure  of  foreigners,  who  have  ac- 
quired a  practical  mastery  of  English  and  who  have 
eliminated  all  the  cruder  phonetic  shortcomings  of  their 
less  careful  brethren,  to  observe  such  minor  distinctions 
that  helps  to  give  their  English  pronunciation  the  curi- 
ously elusive  ''accent"  that  we  all  vaguely  feel.  We 
do  not  diagnose  the  "accent"  as  the  total  acoustic  effect 
produced  by  a  series  of  slight  but  specific  phonetic  er- 
rors for  the  very  good  reason  that  we  have  never 
made  clear  to  ourselves  our  own  phonetic  stock  in 
trade.  If  two  languages  taken  at  random,  say  Eng- 
lish and  Russian,  are  compared  as  to  their  phonetic 
systems,  we  are  more  apt  than  not  to  find  that  very 
few  of  the  phonetic  elements  of  the  one  find  an  exact 
analogue  in  the  other.  Thus,  the  #  of  a  Russian  word 
like  tarn  "there"  is  neither  the  English  t  of  sting  nor 
the  English  t  of  tee7n.  It  differs  from  both  in  its  ' '  den- 
tal" articulation,  in  other  words,  in  being  produced  by 
contact  of  the  tip  of  the  tongue  with  the  upper  teeth, 
not,  as  in  English,  by  contact  of  the  tongue  back  of  the 


THE  SOUNDS  OF  LANGUAGE  45 

tip  with  the  gum  ridge  above  the  teeth;  moreover,  it 
differs  from  the  t  of  teem  also  in  the  absence  of  a  marked 
"breath  release"  before  the  following  vowel  is  attached, 
so  that  its  acoustic  effect  is  of  a  more  precise,  "metallic" 
nature  than  in  English.  Again,  the  English  I  is  un- 
known in  Russian,  which  possesses,  on  the  other  hand, 
two  distinct  ^sounds  that  the  normal  English  speaker 
would  find  it  difficult  exactly  to  reproduce — a  * '  hollow, ' ' 
guttural-like  I  and  a  "soft,"  palatalized  Z-sound  that  is 
only  very  approximately  rendered,  in  English  terms,  as 
ly.  Even  so  simple  and,  one  would  imagine,  so  invaria- 
ble a  sound  as  m  differs  in  the  two  languages.  In  a  Rus- 
sian word  like  rthost  "bridge"  the  m  is  not  the  same  as 
the  m  of  the  English  word  most;  the  lips  are  more  fully 
roiuided  during  its  articulation,  so  that  it  makes  a  heav- 
ier, more  resonant  impression  on  the  ear.  The  vowels, 
needless  to  say,  differ  completely  in  English  and  Rus- 
sian, hardly  any  two  of  them  being  quite  the  same. 

I  have  gone  into  these  illustrative  details,  which  are 
of  little  or  no  specific  interest  for  us,  merely  in  order 
to  provide  something  of  an  experimental  basis  to  con- 
vince ourselves  of  the  tremendous  variability  of  speech 
sounds.  Yet  a  complete  inventory  of  the  acoustic  re- 
sources of  all  the  European  languages,  the  languages 
nearer  home,  while  unexpectedly  large,  would  still  fall 
far  short  of  conveying  a  just  idea  of  the  true  range 
of  human  articulation.  In  many  of  the  languages  of 
Asia,  Africa,  and  aboriginal  America  there  are  whole 
classes  of  sounds  that  most  of  us  have  no  knowledge 
of.  They  are  not  necessarily  more  difficult  of  enuncia- 
tion than  sounds  more  familiar  to  our  ears ;  they  merely 
involve  such  muscular  adjustments  of  the  organs  of 
speech  as  we  have  never  habituated  ourselves  to.  It 
may  be  safely  said  that  the  total  number  of  possible 


46  LANGUAGE 

sounds  is  greatly  in  excess  of  those  actually  in  use.  In- 
deed, an  experienced  phonetician  should  have  no  diffi- 
culty in  inventing  sounds  that  are  unknown  to  objective 
investigation.  One  reason  why  we  find  it  difficult  to 
believe  that  the  range  of  possible  speech  sounds  is  indefi- 
nitely large  is  our  habit  of  conceiving  the  sound  as  a 
simple,  unanalyzable  impression  instead  of  as  the  re- 
sultant of  a  number  of  distinct  muscular  adjustments 
that  take  place  simultaneously.  A  slight  change  in  any 
one  of  these  adjustments  gives  us  a  new  sound  which  is 
akin  to  the  old  one,  because  of  the  continuance  of  the 
other  adjustments,  but  which  is  acoustically  distinct 
from  it,  so  sensitive  has  the  human  ear  become  to  the 
nuanced  play  of  the  vocal  mechanism.  Another  reason 
for  our  lack  of  phonetic  imagination  is  the  fact  that, 
while  our  ear  is  delicately  responsive  to  the  sounds  of 
speech,  the  muscles  of  our  speech  organs  have  early  in 
life  become  exclusively  accustomed  to  the  particular  ad- 
justments and  systems  of  adjustment  that  are  required 
to  produce  the  traditional  sounds  of  the  language.  All 
or  nearly  all  other  adjustments  have  become  perma- 
nently inhibited,  whether  through  inexperience  or 
through  gradual  elimination.  Of  course  the  power  to 
produce  these  inhibited  adjustments  is  not  entirely  lost, 
but  the  extreme  difficulty  we  experience  in  learning  the 
new  sounds  of  foreign  languages  is  sufficient  evidence  of 
the  strange  rigidity  that  has  set  in  for  most  people  in  the 
voluntary  control  of  the  speech  organs.  The  point  may 
be  brought  home  by  contrasting  the  comparative  lack  of 
freedom  of  voluntary  speech  movements  with  the  all  but 
perfect  freedom  of  voluntary  gesture.^    Our  rigidity  in 

1  Obsprve  the  "voluntary."  When  we  shout  or  grunt  or  other- 
wise allow  our  voices  to  take  care  of  themselves,  as  we  are  likely  to 
do  when  alone  in  the  country  on  a  fine  spring  day,  we  are  no  longer 


THE  SOUNDS  OF  LANGUAGE  47 

articulation  is  the  price  we  have  had  to  pay  for  easy- 
mastery  of  a  highly  necessary  symbolism.  One  cannot 
be  both  splendidly  free  in  the  random  choice  of  move- 
ments and  selective  with  deadly  certainty.^ 

There  are,  then,  an  indefinitely  large  number  of  ar- 
ticulated sounds  available  for  the  mechanics  of  speech; 
any  given  language  makes  use  of  an  explicit,  rigidly 
economical  selection  of  these  rich  resources;  and  each 
of  the  many  possible  sounds  of  speech  is  conditioned  by 
a  number  of  independent  muscular  adjustments  that 
work  together  simultaneously  towards  its  production.  A 
full  account  of  the  activity  of  each  of  the  organs  of 
speech — in  so  far  as  its  activity  has  a  bearing  on  lan- 
guage— is  impossible  here,  nor  can  we  concern  ourselves 
in  a  systematic  way  with  the  classification  of  sounds  on 
the  basis  of  their  mechanics.^  A  few  bold  outlines  are 
all  that  we  can  attempt.     The  organs  of  speech  are  the 

fixing  vocal  adjustmonts  by  voluntary  control.  Under  these  cir- 
cumstances we  are  almost  certain  to  hit  on  speech  sounds  that 
we  could  never  learn  to  control   in   actvial   speech. 

2  If  speech,  in  its  acoustic  and  articulatory  aspect,  is  indeed 
a  rigid  system,  how  comes  it,  one  may  plausibly  object,  that  no 
two  people  speak  alike?  The  answer  is  simple.  All  that  part  of 
speech  which  falls  out  of  the  rigid  articulatory  framework  is  not 
speech  in  idea,  l)ut  is  merely  a  superadded,  more  or  less  instinc- 
tively determined  vocal  complication  inseparable  from  speech  in 
practice.  All  the  individual  color  of  speech — personal  emphasis, 
speed,  personal  cadence,  personal  pitch — is  a  non-linguistic  fact, 
just  as  the  incidental  expression  of  desire  and  emotion  are,  for 
the  most  part,  alien  to  linguistic  expression.  Speech,  like  all 
elements  of  culture,  demands  conceptual  selection,  inhibition  of 
the  randomness  of  instinctive  behavior.  That  its  "idea"  is  never 
realized  as  such  in  practice,  its  carriers  being  instinctively  ani- 
mated organisms,  is  of  course  true  of  each  and  every  aspect  of 
culture. 

3  Purely  acoustic  classifications,  such  as  more  easily  suggest 
themselves  to  a  first  attempt  at  analysis,  are  now  in  less  favor 
among  students  of  phonetics  than  organic  classifications.  The 
latter  have  the  advantage  of  being  more  olijective.  Moreover, 
the  acoustic  quality  of  a  sound  is  dependent  on  the  articulation, 
even  though  in  linguistic  consciousness  this  quality  is  the  primary, 
not  the  secondary,  fact. 


48  LANGUAGE 

lungs  and  bronchial  tubes;  the  throat,  particularly  that 
part  of  it  which  is  known  as  the  larynx  or,  in  popular 
parlance,  the  "Adam's  apple";  the  nose;  the  uvula, 
which  is  the  soft,  pointed,  and  easily  movable  organ  that 
depends  from  the  rear  of  the  palate;  the  palate,  which 
is  divided  into  a  posterior,  movable  "soft  palate"  or 
velum  and  a  "hard  palate";  the  tongue;  the  teeth;  and 
the  lips.  The  palate,  lower  palate,  tongue,  teeth,  and 
lips  may  be  looked  upon  as  a  combined  resonance  cham- 
ber, whose  constantly  varying  shape,  chiefly  due  to  the 
extreme  mobility  of  the  tongue,  is  the  main  factor  in 
giving  the  outgoing  breath  its  precise  quality  *  of  sound. 

The  lungs  and  bronchial  tubes  are  organs  of  speech 
only  in  so  far  as  they  supply  and  conduct  the  current 
of  outgoing  air  without  which  audible  articulation  is 
impossible.  They  are  not  responsible  for  any  specific 
sound  or  acoustic  feature  of  sounds  except,  possibly, 
accent  or  stress.  It  may  be  that  differences  of  stress 
are  due  to  slight  differences  in  the  contracting  force 
of  the  lung  muscles,  but  even  this  influence  of  the  lungs 
is  denied  by  some  students,  who  explain  the  fluctuations 
of  stress  that  do  so  much  to  color  speech  by  reference 
to  the  more  delicate  activity  of  the  glottal  cords.  These 
glottal  cords  are  two  small,  nearly  horizontal,  and  highly 
sensitive  membranes  within  the  larynx,  which  consists, 
for  the  most  part,  of  two  large  and  several  smaller  car- 
tilages and  of  a  number  of  small  muscles  that  control 
the  action  of  the  cords. 

The  cords,  which  are  attached  to  the  cartilages,  are 
to  the  human  speech  organs  what  the  two  vibrating  reeds 

4  By  "quality"  is  here  meant  tlie  inherent  nature  and  resonance 
of  the  sound  as  such.  The  general  "quality"  of  the  individual's 
voice  is  another  matter  altogether.  Tliis  is  chiefly  determined 
by  the  individual  anatomical  characteristics  of  the  larynx  and  is 
of  no   linguistic  interest  whatever. 


THE  SOUNDS  OF  LANGUAGE  49 

are  to  a  clarinet  or  the  strings  to  a  violin.  They  are  ca- 
pable of  at  least  three  distinct  types  of  movement,  each 
of  which  is  of  the  greatest  importance  for  speech.  They 
may  be  drawn  towards  or  away  from  each  other,  they 
may  vibrate  like  reeds  or  strings,  and  they  may  be- 
come lax  or  tense  in  the  direction  of  their  length.  The 
last  class  of  these  movements  allows  the  cords  to  vibrate 
at  different  "lengths"  or  degrees  of  tenseness  and  is 
responsible  for  the  variations  in  pitch  which  are  present 
not  only  in  song  but  in  the  more  elusive  modulations  of 
ordinary  speech.  The  two  other  types  of  glottal  action 
determine  the  nature  of  the  voice,  "voice"  being  a  con- 
venient term  for  breath  as  utilized  in  speech.  If  the 
cords  are  well  apart,  allowing  the  breath  to  escape  in  un- 
modified form,  we  have  the  condition  technically  known 
as  "voicelessness."  All  sounds  produced  under  these 
circumstances  are  ' '  voiceless ' '  sounds.  Such  are  the  sim- 
ple, unmodified  breath  as  it  passes  into  the  mouth,  which 
is,  at  least  approximately,  the  same  as  the  sound  that 
we  v/rite  Ji,  also  a  large  number  of  special  articulations 
in  the  mouth  chamber,  like  p  and  s.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  glottal  cords  may  be  brought  tight  together,  without 
vibrating.  When  this  happens,  the  current  of  breath 
is  checked  for  the  time  being.  The  slight  choke  or 
"arrested  cough"  that  is  thus  made  audible  is  not  rec- 
ognized in  English  as  a  definite  sound  but  occurs  never- 
theless not  infrequently.^  This  momentary  check,  tech- 
nically known  as  a  "  glottal  stop, "  is  an  integral  element 
of  speech  in  many  languages,  as  Danish,  Lettish,  certain 
Chinese  dialects,  and  nearly  all  American  Indian  lan- 
guages.    Between  the  two  extremes  of  voicelessness,  that 

5  As  at  the  end  of  the  snappily  pronounced  no !  ( sometimes 
written  nope!)  or  in  the  over-carefuUy  pronounced  at  all,  where 
one  may  hear  a  slight  check  between  the  t  and  the  a. 


50  LANGUAGE 

of  completely  open  breath  and  that  of  checked  breath, 
lies  the  position  of  true  voice.  In  this  position  the  cords 
are  close  together,  but  not  so  tightly  as  to  prevent  the 
air  from  streaming  through ;  the  cords  are  set  vibrating 
and  a  musical  tone  of  varying  pitch  results.  A  tone  so 
produced  is  known  as  a  "voiced  sound."  It  may  have 
an  indefinite  number  of  qualities  according  to  the  precise 
position  of  the  upper  organs  of  speech.  Our  vowels, 
nasals  (such  as  m  and  n),  and  such  sounds  as  h,  z,  and 
I  are  all  voiced  sounds.  The  most  convenient  test  of  a 
voiced  sound  is  the  possibility  of  pronouncing  it  on  any 
given  pitch,  in  other  words,  of  singing  on  it.^  The 
voiced  sounds  are  the  most  clearly  audible  elements  of 
speech.  As  such  they  are  the  carriers  of  practically  all 
significant  differences  in  stress,  pitch,  and  syllabification. 
The  voiceless  sounds  are  articulated  noises  that  break  up 
the  stream  of  voice  with  fleeting  moments  of  silence. 
Acoustically  intermediate  between  the  freely  unvoiced 
and  the  voiced  sounds  are  a  number  of  other  character- 
istic types  of  voicing,  such  as  murmuring  and  whisper.'^ 
These  and  still  other  types  of  voice  are  relatively  unim- 
portant in  English  and  most  other  European  languages, 
but  there  are  languages  in  which  they  rise  to  some 
prominence  in  the  normal  flow  of  speech. 

The  nose  is  not  an  active  organ  of  speech,  but  it  is 
highly  important  as  a  resonance  chamber.     It  may  be 

6  "Singitia;"  is  licre  used  in  a  wide  sense.  One  cannot  sing 
continuously  on  sncli  a  sound  as  h  or  d,  but  one  may  easily 
outline  a  tune  on  a  series  of  &'s  or  d's  in  the  manner  of  the 
plucked  "pizzicato"  on  stringed  instruments.  A  series  of  tones 
executed  on  continuant  consonants,  like  m,  z,  or  /,  gives  the  effect 
of  humming,  droning,  or  buzzing.  The  sound  of  "liumming,"  in- 
deed, is  nothing  but  a  continuous  voiced  nasal,  held  on  one  pitch 
or  varying  in  pitch,  as  desired. 

7  The  whisper  of  ordinary  speech  is  a  combination  of  unvoiced 
sounds  and  "whispered"  sounds,  as  the  term  is  understood  in 
phonetics. 


THE  SOUNDS  OF  LANGUAGE  51 

disconnected  from  the  mouth,  which  is  the  other  great 
resonance  chamber,  by  the  lifting  of  the  movable  part  of 
the  soft  palate  so  as  to  shut  off  the  passage  of  the  breath 
into  the  nasal  cavity ;  or,  if  the  soft  palate  is  allowed  to 
hang  down  freely  and  unobstructively,  so  that  the  breath 
passes  into  both  the  nose  and  the  mouth,  these  make  a 
combined  resonance  chamber.  Such  sounds  as  h  and  a 
(as  in  father)  are  voiced  "oral"  sounds,  that  is,  the 
voiced  breath  does  not  receive  a  nasal  resonance.  As 
soon  as  the  soft  palate  is  lowered,  however,  and  the  nose 
added  as  a  participating  resonance  chamber,  the  sounds 
h  and  a  take  on  a  peculiar  "nasal"  quality  and  become, 
respectively,  m  and  the  nasalized  vowel  written  an  in 
French  (e.g.,  sang,  tant).  The  only  English  sounds® 
that  normally  receive  a  nasal  resonance  are  m,  n,  and  the 
ng  sound  of  sing.  Practically  all  sounds,  however,  may 
be  nasalized,  not  only  the  vowels — nasalized  vowels  are 
common  in  all  parts  of  the  world — but  such  sounds  as  I 
or  z.  Voiceless  nasals  are  perfectly  possible.  They  oc- 
cur, for  instance,  in  Welsh  and  in  quite  a  number  of 
American  Indian  languages. 

The  organs  that  make  up  the  oral  resonance  chamber 
may  articulate  in  two  ways.  The  breath,  voiced  or  un- 
voiced, nasalized  or  unnasalized,  may  be  allowed  to  pass 
through  the  mouth  without  being  checked  or  impeded 
at  any  point;  or  it  may  be  either  momentarily  checked 
or  allowed  to  stream  through  a  greatly  narrowed  pas- 
sage with  resulting  air  friction.  There  are  also  tran- 
sitions between  the  two  latter  types  of  articulation.  The 
unimpeded  breath  takes  on  a  particular  color  or  quality 
in  accordance  with  the  varying  shape  of  the  oral  reso- 
nance chamber.     This  shape  is  chiefly  determined  by  the 

8  Aside  from  the  involuntary  nasalizing  of  all  voiced  sounds 
in  the  speech  of  those  that  talk  with  a  "nasal  twang." 


52  LANGUAGE 

position  of  the  movable  parts — the  tongue  and  the  lips. 
As  the  tongue  is  raised  or  lowered,  retracted  or  brought 
forward,  held  tense  or  lax,  and  as  the  lips  are  pursed 
("rounded")  in  varying  degree  or  allowed  to  keep  their 
position  of  rest,  a  large  number  of  distinct  qualities 
result.  These  oral  qualities  are  the  vowels.  In  theory 
their  number  is  infinite,  in  practice  the  ear  can  dif- 
ferentiate only  a  limited,  yet  a  surprisingly  large,  num- 
ber of  resonance  positions.  Vowels,  whether  nasalized 
or  not,  are  normally  voiced  sounds;  in  not  a  few  lan- 
guages, however,  ' '  voiceless  vowels ' '  ^  also  occur. 

The  remaining  oral  sounds  are  generally  grouped  to- 
gether as  "consonants."  In  them  the  stream  of  breath 
is  interfered  with  in  some  way,  so  that  a  lesser  reso- 
nance results,  and  a  sharper,  more  incisive  quality  of 
tone.  There  are  four  main  types  of  articulation 
generally  recognized  within  the  consonantal  group 
of  sounds.  The  breath  may  be  completely  stopped  for 
a  moment  at  some  definite  point  in  the  oral  cavity. 
Sounds  so  produced,  like  t  or  d  or  p,  are  known  as 
"stops"  or  "explosives."  ^°  Or  the  breath  may  be  con- 
tinuously obstructed  through  a  narrow  passage,  not  en- 
tirely checked.  Examples  of  such  "spirants"  or  "frica- 
tives," as  they  are  called,  are  s  and  z  and  y.  The  third 
class  of  consonants,  the  "laterals,"  are  semi-stopped. 
There  is  a  true  stoppage  at  the  central  point  of  articu- 
lation, but  the  breath  is  allowed  to  escape  through  the 
two  side  passages  or  through  one  of  them.  Our  English 
d,   for   instance,    may   be   readily   transformed    into   I, 

9  These  may  be  also  defined  as  free  unvoiced  breath  with  vary- 
ing vocalic  timbres.  In  the  ioiifj  Paiiite  word  quoted  on  page  31 
the  first  11  and  the  final  ii  are  pronounced  without  voice. 

10  Nasalized  stops,  say  m  or  n,  can  iiaturally  not  be  truly 
"stopped,"  as  there  is  no  way  of  checking  the  stream  of  breath 
in  the  nose  by  a  definite  articulation. 


THE  SOUNDS  OF  LANGUAGE  53 

which  has  the  voicing  and  the  position  of  d,  merely  by 
depressing  the  sides  of  the  tongue  on  either  side  of  the 
point  of  contact  sufficiently  to  allow  the  breath  to  come 
through.  Laterals  are  possible  in  many  distinct  posi- 
tions. They  may  be  unvoiced  (the  Welsh  II  is  an  ex- 
ample) as  well  as  voiced.  Finally,  the  stoppage  of  the 
breath  may  be  rapidly  intermittent ;  in  other  words,  the 
active  organ  of  contact — generally  the  point  of  the 
tongue,  less  often  the  uvula  " — may  be  made  to  vibrate 
against  or  near  the  point  of  contact.  These  sounds  are 
the  ''trills"  or  "rolled  consonants,"  of  which  the  normal 
English  r  is  a  none  too  typical  example.  They  are  well 
developed  in  many  languages,  however,  generally  in  voiced 
form,  sometimes,  as  in  Welsh  and  Paiute,  in  unvoiced 
form  as  well. 

The  oral  manner  of  articulation  Ls  naturally  not  suf- 
ficient to  define  a  consonant.  The  place  of  articulation 
must  also  be  considered.  Contacts  may  be  formed  at  a 
large  number  of  points,  from  the  root  of  the  tongue  to 
the  lips.  It  is  not  necessary  here  to  go  at  length  into 
this  somewhat  complicated  matter.  The  contact  is  either 
between  the  root  of  the  tongue  and  the  throat,^-  some 
part  of  the  tongue  and  a  point  on  the  palate  (as  in  A;  or 
ch  or  I),  some  part  of  the  tongue  and  the  teeth  (as  in 
the  English  th  of  thick  and  then),  the  teeth  and  one  of 
the  lips  (practically  always  the  upper  teeth  and  lower 
lip,  as  in  /),  or  the  two  lips  (as  in  p  or  English  w). 
The  tongue  articulations  are  the  most  complicated  of  all, 
as  the  mobility  of  the  tongue  allows  various  points  on 
its  surface,  say  the  tip,  to  articulate  against  a  number  of 
opposed  points  of  contact.     Hence  arise  many  positions 

11  The  lips  also  may  theoretically  so  articulate.  "Labial  trills.* 
however,  are  certainly   rare   in   natural   speech. 

12  This  position,  known  as  "faucal,"  is  not  common. 


54  LANGUAGE 

of  articulation  that  we  are  not  familiar  with,  such  as 
the  typical  "dental"  position  of  Russian  or  Italian  t 
and  d;  or  the  "cerebral"  position  of  Sanskrit  and  other 
languages  of  India,  in  which  the  tip  of  the  tongue  articu- 
lates against  the  hard  palate.  As  there  is  no  break 
at  any  point  between  the  rims  of  the  teeth  back  to  the 
uvula  nor  from  the  tip  of  the  tongue  back  to  its  root, 
it  is  evident  that  all  the  articulations  that  involve  the 
tongue  form  a  continuous  organic  (and  acoustic)  series. 
The  positions  grade  into  each  other,  but  each  language 
selects  a  limited  number  of  clearly  defined  positions  as 
characteristic  of  its  consonantal  system,  ignoring  transi- 
tional or  extreme  positions.  Frequently  a  language  al- 
lows a  certain  latitude  in  the  fixing  of  the  required  posi- 
tion. This  is  true,  for  instance,  of  the  English  A;-sound, 
which  is  articulated  much  further  to  the  front  in  a  word 
like  Jdn  than  in  cool.  We  ignore  this  difference,  psycho- 
logically, as  a  non-essential,  mechanical  one.  Another 
language  might  well  recognize  the  difference,  or  only 
a  slightly  greater  one,  as  significant,  as  paralleling  the 
distinction  in  position  between  the  k  of  kin  and  the  t 
of  tin. 

The  organic  classification  of  speech  sounds  is  a  simple 
matter  after  what  we  have  learned  of  their  production. 
Any  such  sound  may  be  put  into  its  proper  place  by 
the  appropriate  answer  to  four  main  questions : — What 
is  the  position  of  the  glottal  cords  during  its  articula- 
tion? Does  the  breath  pass  into  the  mouth  alone  or  is 
it  also  allowed  to  stream  into  the  nose  ?  Does  the  breath 
pass  freely  through  the  mouth  or  is  it  impeded  at  some 
point  and,  if  so,  in  what  manner?  What  are  the  pre- 
cise points  of  articulation  in  the  mouth  ?  "     This  f  our- 

i"?  "Points  of  articulation"  must  be  understood  to  include  tongue 
and  lip  positions  of  the  vowels. 


THE  SOUNDS  OF  LANGUAGE  55 

fold  classification  of  sounds,  worked  out  in  all  its  de- 
tailed ramifications/*  is  sufficient  to  account  for  all,  or 
practically  all,  the  sounds  of  language.^^ 

The  phonetic  habits  of  a  given  language  are  not  ex- 
haustively defined  by  stating  that  it  makes  use  of  such 
and  such  particular  sounds  out  of  the  all  but  endless 
gamut  that  we  have  briefly  surveyed.  There  remains 
the  important  question  of  the  dynamics  of  these  phonetic 
elements.  Two  languages  may,  theoretically,  be  built 
up  of  precisely  the  same  series  of  consonants  and  vowels 
and  yet  produce  utterly  different  acoustic  effects.  One 
of  them  may  not  recognize  striking  variations  in  the 
lengths  or  "quantities"  of  the  phonetic  elements,  the 
other  may  note  such  variations  most  punctiliously  (in 
probably  the  majority  of  languages  long  and  short  vow- 
els are  distinguished ;  in  many,  as  in  Italian  or  Swedish 
or  Ojibwa,  long  consonants  are  recognized  as  distinct 
from  short  ones).  Or  the  one,  say  English,  may  be 
very  sensitive  to  relative  stresses,  while  in  the  other, 
say  French,  stress  is  a  very  minor  consideration.  Or, 
again,  the  pitch  differences  which  are  inseparable  from 
the  actual  practice  of  language  may  not  affect  the  word 
as  such,  but,  as  in  English,  may  be  a  more  or  less  ran- 
dom or,  at  best,  but  a  rhetorical  phenomenon,  while 
in  other  languages,  as  in  Swedish,  Lithuanian,  Chinese, 
Siamese,  and  the  majority  of  African  languages,  they 
may  be  more  finely  graduated  and  felt  as  integral 
characteristics  of  the  words  themselves.     Varying  meth- 

14  Including,  under  the  fourth  category,  a  number  of  special 
resonance  adjustments  that  we  have  not  been  able  to  take  up 
specifically. 

15  In  so  far,  it  should  be  added,  as  these  sounds  are  expiratory, 
i.e.,  pronounced  with  the  outgoing  breath.  Certain  languages, 
like  the  South  African  Hottentot  and  Bushman,  have  also  a  num- 
ber of  inspiratory  sounds,  pronounced  by  sucking  in  the  breath 
at  various  points  of  oral  contact.    These  are  the  so-called  "clicks." 


56  LANGUAGE 

ods  of  syllabifying  are  also  responsible  for  noteworthy 
acoustic  differences.  Most  important  of  all,  perhaps, 
are  the  very  different  possibilities  of  combining  the 
phonetic  elements.  Each  language  has  its  peculiarities. 
The  ts  combination,  for  instance,  is  found  in  both  Eng- 
lish and  Grerman,  but  in  English  it  can  only  occur  at 
the  end  of  a  word  (as  in  hats),  while  it  occurs  freely 
in  German  as  the  psychological  equivalent  of  a  single 
sound  (as  in  Zeit,  Katze).  Some  languages  allow  of 
great  heapings  of  consonants  or  of  vocalic  groups  (diph- 
thongs), in  others  no  two  consonants  or  no  two  vowels 
may  ever  come  together.  Frequently  a  sound  occurs 
only  in  a  special  position  or  under  special  phonetic  cir- 
cumstances. In  English,  for  instance,  the  s-sound  of 
azure  cannot  occur  initially,  while  the  peculiar  quality 
of  the  t  of  sting  is  dependent  on  its  being  preceded  by  the 
s.  These  dynamic  factors,  in  their  totality,  are  as  im- 
portant for  the  proper  understanding  of  the  phonetic 
genius  of  a  language  as  the  sound  system  itself,  often 
far  more  so. 

We  have  already  seen,  in  an  incidental  way,  that 
phonetic  elements  or  such  dynamic  features  as  quantity 
and  stress  have  varying  psychological  "values."  The 
English  ts  of  hats  is  merely  a  t  followed  by  a  func- 
tionally independent  s,  the  ts  of  the  German  word  Zeit 
has  an  integral  value  equivalent,  say,  to  the  t  of  the 
English  word  tide.  Again,  the  t  of  time  is  indeed  no- 
ticeably distinct  from  that  of  sting,  but  the  difference, 
to  the  consciousness  of  an  English-speaking  person,  is 
quite  irrelevant.  It  has  no  ''value."  If  we  compare 
the  ^sounds  of  Haida,  the  Indian  language  spoken  in 
the  Queen  Charlotte  Islands,  we  find  that  precisely  the 
same  difference  of  articulation  has  a  real  value.  In  such 
a  word  as  sting  "two,"  the  t  is  pronounced  precisely 


THE  SOUNDS  OF  LANGUAGE  57 

as  in  English,  but  in  sta  "from"  the  t  is  clearly  ''aspi- 
rated," like  that  of  time.  In  other  words,  an  objective 
dilTerenee  that  is  irrelevant  in  English  is  of  functional 
value  in  Haida;  from  its  own  psychological  standpoint 
the  t  of  sting  is  as  different  from  that  of  sta  as,  from 
our  standpoint,  is  the  t  of  time  from  the  d  of  divine. 
Further  investigation  would  yield  the  interesting  result 
that  the  Haida  ear  finds  the  difference  between  the  Eng- 
lish t  of  sting  and  the  d  of  divine  as  irrelevant  as  the 
naive  English  ear  finds  that  of  the  ^sounds  of  sting  and 
time.  The  objective  comparison  of  sounds  in  two  or 
more  languages  is,  then,  of  no  psychological  or  historical 
significance  unless  these  sounds  are  first  "weighted,"  un- 
less their  phonetic  ' '  values ' '  are  determined.  These  val- 
ues, in  turn,  flow  from  the  general  behavior  and  func- 
tioning of  the  sounds  in  actual  speech. 

These  considerations  as  to  phonetic  value  lead  to  an 
important  conception.  Back  of  the  purely  objective  sys- 
tem of  sounds  that  is  peculiar  to  a  language  and  which 
can  be  arrived  at  only  by  a  painstaking  phonetic  analy- 
sis, there  is  a  more  restricted  "inner"  or  "ideal"  system 
which,  while  perhaps  equally  unconscious  as  a  system  to 
the  naive  speaker,  can  far  more  readily  than  the  other 
be  brought  to  his  consciousness  as  a  finished  pattern,  a 
psychological  mechanism.  The  inner  sound-system,  over- 
laid though  it  may  be  by  the  mechanical  or  the  irrelevant, 
is  a  real  and  an  immensely  important  principle  in  the 
life  of  a  language.  It  may  persist  as  a  pattern,  in- 
volving number,  relation,  and  functioning  of  phonetic 
elements,  long  after  its  phonetic  content  is  changed.  Two 
historically  related  languages  or  dialects  may  not  have 
a  sound  in  common,  but  their  ideal  sound-systems  may 
be  identical  patterns.  I  would  not  for  a  moment  wish 
to  imply  that  this  pattern  may  not  change.     It  may 


58  LANGUAGE 

shrink  or  expand  or  change  its  functional  complexion, 
but  its  rate  of  change  is  infinitely  less  rapid  than  that  of 
the  sounds  as  such.  Every  language,  then,  is  character- 
ized as  much  by  its  ideal  system  of  sounds  and  by  the 
underlying  phonetic  pattern  (system,  one  might  term  it, 
of  symbolic  atoms)  as  by  a  definite  grammatical  struc- 
ture. Both  the  phonetic  and  conceptual  structures  show 
the  instinctive  feeling  of  language  for  form.^^ 

16  The  conception  of  the  ideal  phonetic  system,  the  phonetic 
pattern,  of  a  language  is  not  as  well  understood  by  linguistic 
students  as  it  should  be.  In  this  respect  the  unschooled  recorder 
of  language,  provided  he  has  a  good  ear  and  a  genuine  instinct 
for  language,  is  often  at  a  great  advantage  as  compared  with  the 
minute  phonetician,  who  is  apt  to  be  swamped  by  his  mass  of 
observations.  I  have  already  employed  my  experience  in  teach- 
ing Indians  to  write  their  own  language  for  its  testing  value  in 
another  connection.  It  yields  equally  valuable  evidence  here. 
I  found  that  it  was  difficult  or  impossible  to  teach  an  Indian 
to  make  phonetic  distinctions  that  did  not  correspond  to  "points 
in  the  pattern  of  his  language,"  however  these  differences  might 
strike  our  objective  ear,  but  that  subtle,  barely  audible,  phonetic 
differences,  if  only  they  hit  the  "points  in  the  pattern,"  were 
easily  and  voluntarily  expressed  in  writing.  In  watching  my 
Nootka  interpreter  write  his  language,  I  often  had  the  curious 
feeling  that  he  was  transcribing  an  ideal  flow  of  phonetic  ele- 
ments which  he  heard,  inadequately  from  a  purely  objective 
standpoint,  as  the  intention  of  the  actual  rumble  of  speech. 


IV 

FORM  IN  LANGUAGE:   GRAMMATICAL 
PROCESSES 

The  question  of  form  in  language  presents  itself  under 
two  aspects.  We  may  either  consider  the  formal  meth- 
ods employed  by  a  language,  its  **  grammatical  proc- 
esses," or  we  may  ascertain  the  distribution  of  concepts 
with  reference  to  formal  expression.  What  are  the  for- 
mal patterns  of  the  language?  And  what  types  of  con- 
cepts make  up  the  content  of  these  formal  patterns  ?  The 
two  points  of  view  are  quite  distinct.  The  English  word 
untMnkingly  is,  broadly  speaking,  formally  parallel  to 
the  word  reformers,  each  being  built  up  on  a  radical  ele- 
ment which  may  occur  as  an  independent  verb  {think, 
form),  this  radical  element  being  preceded  by  an  ele- 
ment {un-,  re-)  that  conveys  a  definite  and  fairly  con- 
crete significance  but  that  cannot  be  used  independently, 
and  followed  by  two  elements  {-ing,  -ly ;  -er,  -s)  that  limit 
the  application  of  the  radical  concept  in  a  relational 
sense.  This  formal  pattern — (&)  -\-  A -{-  {c)  -\-  (d)  ^ — 
is  a  characteristic  feature  of  the  language.  A  countless 
number  of  functions  may  be  expressed  by  it;  in  other 
words,  all  the  possible  ideas  conveyed  by  such  prefixed 
and  suffixed  elements,  while  tending  to  fall  into  minor 
groups,  do  not  necessarily  form  natural,  functional  sys- 
tems. There  is  no  logical  reason,  for  instance,  why  the 
numeral  function  of  -s  should  be  formally  expressed  in 

1  For  the  symbolism,  see  chapter  II. 

59 


60  LANGUAGE 

a  manner  that  is  analogous  to  the  expression  of  the  idea 
conveyed  by  -ly.  It  is  perfectly  conceivable  that  in  an- 
other language  the  concept  of  manner  {-ly)  may  be 
treated  according  to  an  entirely  different  pattern  from 
that  of  plurality.  The  former  might  have  to  be  ex- 
pressed by  an  independent  word  (say,  tlius  unthinking), 
the  latter  by  a  prefixed  element  (say,  plural  ^-refonn-er). 
There  are,  of  course,  an  unlimited  number  of  other  pos- 
sibilities. Even  within  the  confines  of  English  alone 
the  relative  independence  of  form  and  function  can  be 
made  obvious.  Thus,  the  negative  idea  conveyed  by  un- 
can  be  just  as  adequately  expressed  by  a  suffixed  element 
{-less)  in  such  a  word  as  tlioughtlessly.  Such  a  twofold 
formal  expression  of  the  negative  function  would  be  in- 
conceivable in  certain  languages,  say  Eskimo,  where  a 
suffixed  element  would  alone  be  possible.  Again,  the 
plural  notion  conveyed  by  the  -s  of  reformers  is  just  as 
definitely  expressed  in  the  word  geese,  where  an  utterly 
distinct  method  is  employed.  Furthermore,  the  prin- 
ciple of  vocalic  change  {goose — geese)  is  by  no  means 
confined  to  the  expression  of  the  idea  of  plurality;  it 
may  also  function  as  an  indicator  of  difference  of  time 
(e.g.,  sing — sang,  throw — threw).  But  the  expression 
in  English  of  past  time  is  not  by  any  means  always 
bound  up  with  a  change  of  vowel.  In  the  great  ma- 
jority of  cases  the  same  idea  is  expressed  by  means  of 
a  distinct  suffix  {die-d,  work-ed).  Functionally,  died 
and  sang  are  analogous;  so  are  reformers  and  geese. 
Formally,  we  must  arrange  these  words  quite  otherwise. 
Both  die-d  and  re-fornh-er-s  employ  the  method  of  suffix- 
ing grammatical  elements;  both  sang  and  geese  have 
grammatical  form  by  virtue  of  the  fact  that  their  vowels 
differ  from  the  vowels  of  other  words  with  which  they 
2  "Plural"  is  here  a  symbol  for  any  prefix  indicating  plurality. 


FORM:  GRAMMATICAL  PROCESSES  61 

are  closely  related  in  form  and  meaning  {goose;  sing, 
sung). 

Every  language  possesses  one  or  more  formal  methods 
for  indicating  the  relation  of  a  secondary  concept  to 
the  main  concept  of  the  radical  element.  Some  of  these 
grammatical  processes,  like  suffixing,  are  exceedingly 
wide-spread;  others,  like  vocalic  change,  are  less  com- 
mon but  far  from  rare ;  still  others,  like  accent  and  con- 
sonantal change,  are  somewhat  exceptional  as  functional 
processes.  Not  all  languages  are  as  irregular  as  Eng- 
lish in  the  assignment  of  functions  to  its  stock  of  gram- 
matical processes.  As  a  rule,  such  basic  concepts  as 
those  of  plurality  and  time  are  rendered  by  means  of 
one  or  other  method  alone,  but  the  rule  has  so  many 
exceptions  that  we  cannot  safely  lay  it  down  as  a  prin- 
ciple. Wherever  we  go  we  are  impressed  by  the  fact 
that  pattern  is  one  thing,  the  utilization  of  pattern  quite 
another.  A  few  further  examples  of  the  multiple  ex- 
pression of  identical  functions  in  other  languages  than 
English  may  help  to  make  still  more  vivid  this  idea  of 
the  relative  independence  of  form  and  function. 

In  Hebrew,  as  in  other  Semitic  languages,  the  verbal 
idea  as  such  is  expressed  by  three,  less  often  by  two 
or  four,  characteristic  consonants.  Thus,  the  group 
sh-m-r  expresses  the  idea  of  "guarding,"  the  group  g-n-h 
that  of  "stealing,"  n^t-n  that  of  "giving."  Naturally 
these  consonantal  sequences  are  merely  abstracted  from 
the  actual  forms.  The  consonants  are  held  together  in 
different  forms  by  characteristic  vowels  that  vary  ac- 
cording to  the  idea  that  it  is  desired  to  express.  Pre- 
fixed and  suffixed  elements  are  also  frequently  used.  The 
method  of  internal  vocalic  change  is  exemplified  in 
slianiar  "he  has  guarded,"  shomer  "guarding,"  sliamur 
"being  guarded,"  shmor  "(to)  guard."    Analogously, 


62  LANGUAGE 

ganah  "he  has  stolen,"  goneh  "stealing,"  ganuh  "being 
stolen,"  giwb  "(to)  steal."  But  not  all  infinitives  are 
formed  according  to  the  type  of  slimor  and  gnob  or  of 
other  types  of  internal  vowel  change.  Certain  verbs 
suffix  a  ^-element  for  the  infinitive,  e.g.,  ten-etJi  "to 
give,"  lieyo-tli  "to  be."  Again,  the  pronominal  ideas 
may  be  expressed  by  independent  words  (e.g.,  anoki 
"I"),  by  prefixed  elements  (e.g.,  e-shmor  "I  shall 
guard"),  or  by  suffixed  elements  (e.g.,  sliamar-ti  "I 
have  guarded").  In  Nass,  an  Indian  language  of  Brit- 
ish Columbia,  plurals  are  formed  by  four  distinct  meth- 
ods. Most  nouns  (and  verbs)  are  reduplicated  in  the 
plural,  that  is,  part  of  the  radical  element  is  repeated, 
e.g.,  gyat  "person,"  gyigyat  "people."  A  second 
method  is  the  use  of  certain  characteristic  prefixes,  e.g., 
an'on  "hand,"  ka-an'on  "hands";  ivai  "one  paddles," 
lu-ivai  "several  paddle."  Still  other  plurals  are  formed 
by  means  of  internal  vowel  change,  e.g.,  gwula  "cloak," 
givila  "cloaks."  Finally,  a  fourth  class  of  plurals  is 
constituted  by  such  nouiLs  as  suffix  a  grammatical  ele- 
ment, e.g.,  ivahy  "brother,"  wakykiv  "brothers." 

From  such  groups  of  examples  as  these — and  they 
might  be  multiplied  ad  7iauseam — we  cannot  but  con- 
elude  that  linguistic  form  may  and  should  be  studied  as 
types  of  patterning,  apart  from  the  associated  functions. 
We  are  the  more  justified  in  this  procedure  as  all  lan- 
guages evince  a  curious  instinct  for  the  development  of 
one  or  more  particular  grammatical  processes  at  the  ex- 
pense of  others,  tending  always  to  lose  sight  of  any  ex- 
plicit functional  value  that  the  process  may  have  had  in 
the  first  instance,  delighting,  it  would  seem,  in  the  sheer 
play  of  its  means  of  expression.  It  does  not  matter  that 
in  such  a  case  as  the  English  goose — geese,  foul — defile, 
sing — sang — sung  we  can  pro-«^e  that  we  are  dealing  with 


FORM:  GRAMMATICAL  PROCESSES  63 

historically  distinct  processes,  that  the  vocalic  alternation 
of  sing  and  sang,  for  instance,  is  centuries  older  as  a 
specific  type  of  grammatical  process  than  the  outwardly 
parallel  one  of  goose  and  geese.  It  remains  true  that 
there  is  (or  was)  an  inherent  tendency  in  English,  at 
the  time  such  forms  as  geese  came  into  being,  for  the 
utilization  of  vocalic  change  as  a  significant  linguistic 
method.  Failing  the  precedent  set  by  such  already  ex- 
isting types  of  vocalic  alternation  as  sing — sang — sung, 
it  is  highly  doubtful  if  the  detailed  conditions  that 
brought  about  the  evolution  of  forms  like  teeth  and  geese 
from  tooth  and  goose  would  have  been  potent  enough  to 
allow  the  native  linguistic  feeling  to  win  through  to  an 
acceptance  of  these  new  types  of  plural  formation  as 
psychologically  possible.  This  feeling  for  form  as  such, 
freely  expanding  along  predetermined  lines  and  greatly 
inhibited  in  certain  directions  by  the  lack  of  controlling 
types  of  patterning,  should  be  more  clearly  understood 
than  it  seems  to  be.  A  general  survej^  of  many  diverse 
types  of  languages  is  needed  to  give  us  the  proper  per- 
spective on  this  point.  We  saw  in  the  preceding  chap- 
ter that  every  language  has  an  inner  phonetic  system 
of  definite  pattern.  We  now  learn  that  it  has  also  a 
definite  feeling  for  patterning  on  the  level  of  gram- 
matical formation.  Both  of  these  submerged  and  pow- 
erfully controlling  impulses  to  definite  form  operate 
as  such,  regardless  of  the  need  for  expressing  particular 
concepts  or  of  giving  consistent  external  shape  to  par- 
ticular groups  of  concepts.  It  goes  without  saying  that 
these  impulses  can  find  realization  only  in  concrete  func- 
tional expression.  We  must  say  something  to  be  able 
to  say  it  in  a  certain  manner. 

Let  us  now  take  up  a  little  more  systematically,  how- 
ever briefly,  the  various  grammatical  processes  that  lin- 


64  LANGUAGE 

guistic  research  has  established.  They  may  be  grouped 
into  six  main  types :  word  order ;  composition ;  affixation, 
including  the  use  of  prefixes,  suffixes,  and  infixes ;  inter- 
nal modification  of  the  radical  or  grammatical  element, 
whether  this  affects  a  vowel  or  a  consonant;  reduplica- 
tion; and  accentual  differences,  whether  dynamic  (stress) 
or  tonal  (pitch).  There  are  also  special  quantitative 
processes,  like  vocalic  lengthening  or  shortening  and  con- 
sonantal doubling,  but  these  may  be  looked  upon  as  par- 
ticular sub-types  of  the  process  of  internal  modification. 
Possibly  still  other  formal  types  exist,  but  they  are  not 
likely  to  be  of  importance  in  a  general  survey.  It  is 
important  to  bear  in  mind  that  a  linguistic  phenomenon 
cannot  be  looked  upon  as  illustrating  a  definite  ''proc- 
ess" unless  it  has  an  inherent  functional  value.  The 
consonantal  change  in  English,  for  instance,  of  hooks 
and  hags  {s  in  the  former,  z  in  the  latter)  is  of  no  func- 
tional significance.  It  is  a  purely  external,  mechanical 
change  induced  by  the  presence  of  a  preceding  voiceless 
consonant,  k,  in  the  former  case,  of  a  voiced  consonant, 
g,  in  the  latter.  This  mechanical  alternation  is  objec- 
tively the  same  as  that  between  the  noun  house  and  the 
verb  to  house.  In  the  latter  case,  however,  it  has  an  im- 
portant grammatical  function,  that  of  transforming  a 
noun  into  a  verb.  The  two  alternations  belong,  then,  to 
entirely  different  psychological  categories.  Only  the 
latter  is  a  true  illustration  of  consonantal  modification 
as  a  grammatical  process. 

The  simplest,  at  least  the  most  economical,  method  of 
conveying  some  sort  of  grammatical  notion  is  to  juxta- 
pose two  or  more  words  in  a  definite  sequence  without 
making  any  attempt  by  inherent  modification  of  these 
words  to  establish  a  connection  between  them.  Let  us 
put   down  two  simple  English  words  at  random,  say 


FORM:  GRAMMATICAL  PROCESSES  65 

sing  praise.  This  conveys  no  finished  thought  in  Eng- 
lish, nor  does  it  clearly  establish  a  relation  between  the 
idea  of  singing  and  that  of  praising.  Nevertheless,  it 
is  psychologically  impossible  to  hear  or  see  the  two  words 
juxtaposed  without  straining  to  give  them  some  measure 
of  coherent  significance.  The  attempt  is  not  likely  to 
yield  an  entirely  satisfactory  result,  but  what  is  signifi- 
cant is  that  as  soon  as  two  or  more  radical  concepts  are 
put  before  the  human  mind  in  immediate  sequence  it 
strives  to  bind  them  together  with  connecting  values  of 
some  sort.  In  the  ease  of  sing  praise  different  individ- 
uals are  likely  to  arrive  at  different  provisional  results. 
Some  of  the  latent  possibilities  of  the  juxtaposition, 
expressed  in  currently  satisfying  form,  are :  sing  praise 
{to  liiin) !  or  singing  praise,  praise  expressed  in  a  song 
or  to  sing  and  praise  or  one  who  sings  a  song  of  praise 
(compare  such  English  compounds  as  killjoy,  i.e.,  one 
wJio  kills  joy)  or  Jie  sings  a  song  of  praise  (to  him).  The 
theoretical  possibilities  in  the  way  of  rounding  out  these 
two  concepts  into  a  significant  group  of  concepts  or 
even  into  a  finished  thought  are  indefinitely  numerous. 
None  of  them  will  quite  work  in  English,  but  there  are 
numerous  languages  where  one  or  other  of  these  amplify- 
ing processes  is  habitual.  It  depends  entirely  on  the 
genius  of  the  particular  language  what  function  is  in- 
herently involved  in  a  given  sequence  of  words. 

Some  languages,  like  Latin,  express  practically  all 
relations  by  means  of  modifications  within  the  body  of 
the  word  itself.  In  these,  sequence  is  apt  to  be  a  rheto- 
rical rather  than  a  strictly  grammatical  principle. 
Whether  I  say  in  Latin  hominem  feynina  videt  or  fernina 
hominem  videt  or  Jiominem  videt  femina  or  videt  femina 
Jiominem  makes  little  or  no  difference  beyond,  possibly, 
a  rhetorical  or  •stylistic  one.    The  woman  sees  the  man 


66  LANGUAGE 

is  the  identical  significance  of  each  of  these  sentences. 
In  Chinook,  an  Indian  language  of  the  Columbia  River, 
one  can  be  equally  free,  for  the  relation  between  the  verb 
and  the  two  nouns  is  as  inherently  fixed  as  in  Latin. 
The  difference  between  the  two  languages  is  that,  while 
Latin  allows  the  nouns  to  establish  their  relation  to 
each  other  and  to  the  verb,  Chinook  lays  the  formal 
burden  entirely  on  the  verb,  the  full  content  of  which 
is  more  or  less  adequately  rendered  by  sJie-him-sees. 
Eliminate  the  Latin  case  suffixes  {-a  and  -em)  and  the 
Chinook  pronominal  prefixes  {she-him-)  and  we  cannot 
afford  to  be  so  indifferent  to  our  word  order.  We  need 
to  husband  our  resources.  In  other  words,  word  order 
takes  on  a  real  functional  value.  Latin  and  Chinook 
are  at  one  extreme.  Such  languages  as  Chinese,  Siam- 
ese, and  Annamite,  in  which  each  and  every  word,  if  it 
is  to  function  properly,  falls  into  its  assigned  place,  are 
at  the  other  extreme.  But  the  majority  of  languages 
fall  between  these  two  extremes.  In  English,  for  in- 
stance, it  may  make  little  grammatical  difference  whether 
I  say  yesterday  the  man  saw  the  dog  or  the  man  saw  the 
dog  yesterday,  but  it  is  not  a  matter  of  indifference 
whether  I  say  yesterday  the  man  saw  the  dog  or  yester- 
day the  dog  saw  the  m.an  or  whether  I  say  he  is  here  or 
is  he  here?  In  the  one  case,  of  the  latter  group  of  ex- 
amples, the  vital  distinction  of  subject  and  object  de- 
pends entirely  on  the  placing  of  certain  words  of  the 
sentence,  in  the  latter  a  slight  difference  of  sequence 
makes  all  the  difference  between  statement  and  ques- 
tion. It  goes  without  saying  that  in  these  cases  the  Eng- 
lish principle  of  word  order  is  as  potent  a  means  of 
expression  as  is  the  Lntin  use  of  case  suffixes  or  of  an  in- 
terrogative particle.  There  is  here  no  question  of  func* 
tional  poverty,  but  of  formal  economy. 


FORM:  GRAMMATICAL  PROCESSES  67 

We  have  already  seen  something  of  the  process  of 
composition,  the  uniting  into  a  single  word  of  two  or 
more  radical  elements.  Psychologically  this  process  is 
closely  allied  to  that  of  word  order  in  so  far  as  the 
relation  between  the  elements  is  implied,  not  explicitly 
stated.  It  differs  from  the  mere  juxtaposition  of  words 
in  the  sentence  in  that  the  compounded  elements  are  felt 
as  constituting  but  parts  of  a  single  word-organism.  Such 
languages  as  Chinese  and  English,  in  which  the  principle 
of  rigid  sequence  is  well  developed,  tend  not  infrequently 
also  to  the  development  of  compound  words.  It  is  but 
a  step  from  such  a  Chinese  word  sequence  as  jin  tak 
"man  virtue,"  i.e.,  "the  virtue  of  men,"  to  such  more 
conventionalized  and  psychologically  unified  juxtaposi- 
tions as  t'ien  tsz  "heaven  son,"  i.e.,  "emperor,"  or 
shut  fu  "water  man,"  i.e.,  "water  carrier."  In  the 
latter  case  we  may  as  well  frankly  write  shui-fu  as  a 
single  word,  the  meaning  of  the  compound  as  a  whole 
being  as  divergent  from  the  precise  etymological  val- 
ues of  its  component  elements  as  is  that  of  our  English 
word  typewriter  from  the  merely  combined  values  of 
type  and  writer.  In  English  the  unity  of  the  word 
typewriter  is  further  safeguarded  by  a  predominant  ac- 
cent on  the  first  syllable  and  by  the  possibility  of  adding 
such  a  suffixed  element  as  the  plural  -s  to  the  whole 
word.  Chinese  also  unifies  its  compounds  by  means  of 
stress.  However,  then,  in  its  ultimate  origins  the  pro- 
cess of  composition  may  go  back  to  typical  sequences  of 
words  in  the  sentence,  it  is  now,  for  the  most  part,  a 
specialized  method  of  expressing  relations.  French  has 
as  rigid  a  word  order  as  English  but  does  not  possess 
anything  like  its  power  of  compounding  words  into  more 
complex  units.  On  the  other  hand,  classical  Greek,  in 
spite  of  its  relative  freedom  in  the  placing  of  word^ 


68  LANGUAGE 

has  a  very  considerable  bent  for  the  formation  of  com- 
pound terms. 

It  is  curious  to  observe  how  greatly  languages  differ 
in  their  ability  to  make  use  of  the  process  of  composi- 
tion. One  would  have  thought  on  general  principles 
that  so  simple  a  device  as  gives  us  our  typewriter  and 
blackhird  and  hosts  of  other  words  would  be  an  all  but 
universal  grammatical  process.  Such  is  not  the  case. 
There  are  a  great  many  languages,  like  Eskimo  and 
Nootka  and,  aside  from  paltry  exceptions,  the  Semitic 
languages,  that  cannot  compound  radical  elements. 
"What  is  even  stranger  is  the  fact  that  many  of  these 
languages  are  not  in  the  least  averse  to  complex  word- 
formations,  but  may  on  the  contrary  effect  a  synthesis 
that  far  surpasses  the  utmost  that  Greek  and  Sanskrit 
are  capable  of.  Such  a  Nootka  word,  for  instance,  as 
"when,  as  they  say,  he  had  been  absent  for  four  days" 
might  be  expected  to  embody  at  least  three  radical  ele- 
ments corresponding  to  the  concepts  of  "absent," 
"four,"  and  "day."  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  Nootka 
word  is  utterly  incapable  of  composition  in  our  sense. 
It  is  invariably  built  up  out  of  a  single  radical  element 
and  a  greater  or  less  number  of  suffixed  elements,  some 
of  which  may  have  as  concrete  a  significance  as  the 
radical  element  itself.  In  the  particular  case  we  have 
cited  the  radical  element  conveys  the  idea  of  "four," 
the  notions  of  "day"  and  "absent"  being  expressed  by 
suffixes  that  are  as  inseparable  from  the  radical  nucleus 
of  the  word  as  is  an  English  element  like  -er  from  the 
sing  or  Jumt  of  such  words  as  siiiger  and  hunter.  The 
tendency  to  word  synthesis  is,  then,  by  no  means  the 
same  thing  as  the  tendency  to  compounding  radical  ele- 
ments, though  the  latter  is  not  infrequently  a  ready 
means  for  the  synthetic  tendency  to  work  with. 


FORM:  GRAMMATICAL  PROCESSES  69 

There  is  a  bewildering  variety  of  types  of  composi- 
tion. These  types  vary  according  to  function,  the 
nature  of  the  compounded  elements,  and  order.  In  a 
great  many  languages  composition  is  confined  to  what 
we  may  call  the  delimiting  function,  that  is,  of  the 
two  or  more  compounded  elements  one  is  given  a  more 
precisely  qualified  significance  by  the  others,  which  con- 
tribute nothing  to  the  formal  build  of  the  sentence.  In 
English,  for  instance,  such  compounded  elements  as  red 
in  redcoat  or  over  in  overlook  merely  modify  the  signifi- 
cance of  the  dominant  coat  or  look  without  in  any  way 
sharing,  as  such,  in  the  predication  that  is  expressed  by 
the  sentence.  Some  languages,  however,  such  as  Iro- 
quois and  Nahuatl,^  employ  the  method  of  composition 
for  much  heavier  work  than  this.  In  Iroquois,  for  in- 
stance, the  composition  of  a  noun,  in  its  radical  form, 
with  a  following  verb  is  a  typical  method  of  expressing 
case  relations,  particularly  of  the  subject  or  object.  I- 
meat-eat,  for  instance,  is  the  regular  Iroquois  method 
of  expressing  the  sentence  I  am  eating  meat.  In  other 
languages  similar  forms  may  express  local  or  instru- 
mental or  still  other  relations.  Such  English  forms  as 
killjoy  and  marplot  also  illustrate  the  compounding  of 
a  verb  and  a  noun,  but  the  resulting  word  has  a  strictly 
nominal,  not  a  verbal,  function.  We  cannot  say  lie 
marplots.  Some  languages  allow  the  composition  of  all 
or  nearly  all  types  of  elements.  Paiute,  for  instance, 
may  compound  noun  with  noun,  adjective  with  noun, 
verb  with  noun  to  make  a  noun,  noun  with  verb  to  make 
a  verb,  adverb  with  verb,  verb  with  verb.  Yana,  an 
Indian  language  of  California,  can  freely  compound  noun 
with  noun  and  verb  with  noun,  but  not  verb  with  verb. 

3  The  language  of  the  Aztecs,  still  spoken  in  large  parts  of 
Mexico. 


70  LANGUAGE 

On  the  other  hand,  Iroquois  can  compound  only  noun 
with  verb,  never  noun  and  noun  as  in  English  or  verb 
and  verb  as  in  so  many  other  languages.  Finally,  each 
language  has  its  characteristic  types  of  order  of  com- 
position. In  English  the  qualifying  element  regularly 
precedes ;  in  certain  other  languages  it  follows.  Some- 
times both  types  are  used  in  the  same  language,  as  in 
Yana,  where  "beef"  is  "bitter-venison"  but  "deer- 
liver"  is  expressed  by  "liver-deer."  The  compounded 
object  of  a  verb  precedes  the  verbal  element  in  Paiute, 
Nahuatl,  and  Iroquois,  follows  it  in  Yana,  Tsimshian,* 
and  the  Algonkin  languages. 

Of  all  grammatical  processes  affixing  is  incomparably 
the  most  frequently  employed.  There  are  languages, 
like  Chinese  and  Siamese,  that  make  no  grammatical  use 
of  elements  that  do  not  at  the  same  time  possess  an 
independent  value  as  radical  elements,  but  such  lan- 
guages are  uncommon.  Of  the  three  types  of  affixing — 
the  use  of  prefixes,  suffixes,  and  infixes — suffixing  is 
much  the  commonest.  Indeed,  it  is  a  fair  guess  that 
suffixes  do  more  of  the  formative  work  of  language 
than  all  other  methods  combined.  It  is  worth  noting 
that  there  are  not  a  few  affixing  languages  that  make 
absolutely  no  use  of  prefixed  elements  but  possess  a 
complex  apparatus  of  suffixes.  Such  are  Turkish,  Hot- 
tentot, Eskimo,  Nootka,  and  Yana.  Some  of  these,  like 
the  three  last  mentioned,  have  hundreds  of  suffixed  ele- 
ments, many  of  them  of  a  concreteness  of  significance 
that  would  demand  expression  in  the  vast  majority 
of  languages  by  means  of  radical  elements.  The  reverse 
case,  the  use  of  prefixed  elements  to  the  complete  exclu- 
sion of  suffixes,  is  far  less  common.     A  good  example  is 

4  An  Tndin?!  lini'niasjc!  of  British  Columbia  closely  related  to 
the  Nass  already  cited. 


FORM:  GRAMMATICAL  PROCESSES  71 

Khmer  (or  Cambodgian),  spoken  in  French  Coehin- 
China,  though  even  here  there  are  obscure  traces  of  old 
suffixes  that  have  ceased  to  function  as  such  and  are  now 
felt  to  form  part  of  the  radical  element. 

A  considerable  majority  of  known  languages  are 
prefixing  and  suffixing  at  one  and  the  same  time, 
but  the  relative  importance  of  the  two  groups  of  affixed 
elements  naturally  varies  enormously.  In  some  lan- 
guages, such  as  Latin  and  Russian,  the  suffixes  alone  re- 
late the  word  to  the  rest  of  the  sentence,  the  prefixes  be- 
ing confined  to  the  expression  of  such  ideas  as  delimit 
the  concrete  significance  of  the  radical  element  without 
influencing  its  bearing  in  the  proposition.  A  Latin  form 
like  remittehantur  "they  were  being  sent  back"  may 
serve  as  an  illustration  of  this  type  of  distribution  of 
elements.  The  prefixed  element  re-  "back"  merely  qual- 
ifies to  a  certain  extent  the  inherent  significance  of  the 
radical  element  mitt-  "send,"  while  the  suffixes  -eha-, 
-nt-,  and  -ur  convey  the  less  concrete,  more  strictly  for- 
mal, notions  of  time,  person,  plurality,  and  passivity. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  are  languages,  like  the 
Bantu  group  of  Africa  or  the  Athabaskan  languages  ^ 
of  North  America,  in  which  the  grammatically'^  signifi- 
cant elements  precede,  those  that  follow  the  radical  ele- 
ment forming  a  relatively  dispensable  class.  The  Hupa 
word  te-s-e-ya-te  "I  will  go,"  for  example,  consists  of  a 
radical  element  -ya-  "to  go,"  three  essential  prefixes  and 
a  formally  subsidiary  suffix.  The  element  te-  indicates 
that  the  act  takes  place  here  and  there  in  space  or  con- 
tinuously over  space ;  practically,  it  has  no  clear-cut  sig- 
nificance apart  from  such  verb  stems  as  it  is  customary 
to  connect  it  with.     The  second  prefixed  element,  -s-,  is 

s  TnoliKlincr  siifh  languages  as  Navaho,  Apache,  Hupa,  Carrier 
Chipewyan,  Loucheux. 


72  LANGUAGE 

even  less  easy  to  define.  All  we  can  say  is  that  it  is 
used  in  verb  forms  of  ' '  definite ' '  time  and  that  it  marks 
action  as  in  progress  rather  than  as  beginning  or  coming 
to  an  end.  The  third  prefix,  -e-,  is  a  pronominal  ele- 
ment, "I,"  which  can  be  used  only  in  "definite"  tenses. 
It  is  highly  important  to  understand  that  the  use  of  -e- 
is  conditional  on  that  of  -s-  or  of  certain  alternative  pre- 
fixes and  that  te-  also  is  in  practice  linked  with  -s-.  The 
group  te-s-e-ya  is  a  firmly  knit  grammatical  unit.  The 
suffix  -te,  which  indicates  the  future,  is  no  more  necessary 
to  its  formal  balance  than  is  the  prefixed  re-  of  the  Latin 
word;  it  is  not  an  element  that  is  capable  of  standing 
alone  but  its  function  is  materially  delimiting  rather 
than  strictly  formal.* 

It  is  not  always,  however,  that  we  can  clearly  set  off 
the  suffixes  of  a  language  as  a  group  against  its  pre- 
fixes. In  probably  the  majority  of  languages  that  use 
both  types  of  affixes  each  group  has  both  delimiting  and 
formal  or  relational  functions.  The  most  that  we  can 
say  is  that  a  language  tends  to  express  similar  functions 
in  either  the  one  or  the  other  manner.  If  a  certain 
verb  expresses  a  certain  tense  by  suffixing,  the  probability 
is  strong  that  it  expresses  its  other  tenses  in  an  analogous 
fashion  and  that,  indeed,  all  verbs  have  suffixed  tense  ele- 
ments. Similarly,  we  normally  expect  to  find  the  pro- 
nominal elements,  so  far  as  they  are  included  in  the 
verb  at  all,  either  consistently  prefixed  or  suffixed.    But 

6  This  may  seem  surprising  to  an  Enfjlish  reader.  We  generally 
think  of  time  as  a  function  that  is  appropriately  expressed 
in  a  purely  formal  manner.  This  notion  is  due  to  the  bias 
that  Latin  grammar  has  given  us.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the 
English  future  (/  shall  go)  is  not  expressed  by  affixing  at 
all;  moreover,  it  may  be  expressed  by  the  present,  as  in  to-morrow 
I  leave  this  place,  where  the  temporal  function  is  inherent  in  the 
independent  adverb.  Though  in  lesser  degree,  the  Hupa  -te  is  as 
irrevelant  to  the  vital  word  as  is  to-morrow  to  the  grammatical 
"feel"  of  /  leave. 


FORM:  GRAMMATICAL  PROCESSES  73 

these  rules  are  far  from  absolute.  We  have  already 
seen  that  Hebrew  prefixes  its  pronominal  elements  in 
certain  cases,  suffixes  them  in  others.  In  Chimariko,  an 
Indian  language  of  California,  the  position  of  the  pro- 
nominal affixes  depends  on  the  verb;  they  are  prefixed 
for  certain  verbs,  suffixed  for  others. 

It  will  not  be  necessary  to  give  many  further  examples 
of  prefixing  and  suffixing.  One  of  each  category  will 
suffice  to  illustrate  their  formative  possibilities.  The 
idea  expressed  in  English  by  the  sentence  /  ca7ne  to  give 
it  to  her  is  rendered  in  Chinook  ^  by  i-n-i-a-l-u-d-am. 
This  word — and  it  is  a  thoroughly  unified  word  with  a 
clear-cut  accent  on  the  first  a — consists  of  a  radical  ele- 
ment, -d-  ''to  give,"  six  functionally  distinct,  if  phoneti- 
cally frail,  prefixed  elements,  and  a  suffix.  Of  the  pre- 
fixes, i-  indicates  recently  past  time;  n-,  the  pronominal 
subject  "I";  -i-,  the  pronominal  object  "it";^  -a-,  the 
second  pronominal  object  "her";  -1-,  a  prepositional  ele- 
ment indicating  that  the  preceding  pronominal  prefix 
is  to  be  understood  as  an  indirect  object  {-Jier-to-,  i.e., 
"to  her")  ;  and  -u-,  an  element  that  it  is  not  easy  to 
define  satisfactorily  but  which,  on  the  whole,  indicates 
movement  away  from  the  speaker.  The  suffixed  -am 
modifies  the  verbal  content  in  a  local  sense ;  it  adds  to 
the  notion  conveyed  by  the  radical  element  that  of  "ar- 
riving" or  "going  (or  coming)  for  that  particular  pur- 
pose." It  is  obvious  that  in  Chinook,  as  in  Hupa,  the 
greater  part  of  the  grammatical  machinery  resides  in  the 
prefixes  rather  than  in  the  suffixes. 

A  reverse  case,  one  in  which  the  grammatically  signifi- 
cant elements  cluster,  as  in  Latin,  at  the  end  of  the  word 

7  Wishram  dialect. 

8  Really  "him,"  but  Chinook,  like  Latin  or  French,  possesses 
grammatical  gender.  An  object  may  be  referred  to  as  "he,"  "she," 
or  "it,"  according  to  the  characteristic  form  of  its  noun. 


74  LANGUAGE 

is  yielded  by  Fox,  one  of  the  better  known  Algonkin  lan- 
guages of  the  Mississippi  Valley.  We  may  take  the  form 
eh-kiwi-n-a-m-olit-ati-wa-cli{i)  "then  they  together  kept 
(him)  in  flight  from  them."  The  radical  element  here 
is  kiwi-,  a  verb  stem  indicating  the  general  notion  of 
"indefinite  movement  round  about,  here  and  there." 
The  prefixed  element  eh-  is  hardly  more  than  an  ad- 
verbial particle  indicating  temporal  subordination;  it 
may  be  conveniently  rendered  as  "then."  Of  the  seven 
suffixes  included  in  this  highly-wrought  word,  -n-  seems 
to  be  merely  a  phonetic  element  serving  to  connect  the 
verb  stem  with  the  following  -a-;^  -a-  is  a  "secondary 
stem"^"  denoting  the  idea  of  "flight,  to  flee";  -m-  de- 
notes causality  with  reference  to  an  animate  object  ;^^ 
-o{Jit)-  indicates  activity  done  for  the  subject  (the  so- 
called  "middle"  or  "medio-passive"  voice  of  Greek)  ; 
-{a)ti-  is  a  reciprocal  element,  "one  another";  -iva-ch{i) 
is  the  third  person  animate  plural  (-^vn-,  plural;  -cJii, 
more  properly  personal)  of  so-called  "conjunctive" 
forms.  The  word  may  be  translated  more  literally  (and 
yet  only  approximately  as  to  grammatical  feeling)  as 
"then  they  (animate)  caused  some  animate  being  to 
wander  about  in  flight  from  one  another  of  themselves." 
Eskimo,  Nootka,  Yana,  and  other  languages  have  simi- 
larly complex  arrays  of  sufflxed  elements,  though  the 

0  This  analysis  is  doubtful.  Tt  is  likely  that  -n-  possesses  a 
function  that  still  remains  to  be  ascertained.  The  Alf!;onkin  lan- 
guages are  unusually  complex  and  present  ]  any  unsolved  prob- 
lems  of   detail. 

in  "Secondary  stems"  are  elements  which  are  suffixes  from  a 
formal  point  of  view,  never  appearing  without  the  support  of  a 
true  radical  element,  but  whose  function  is  as  concrete,  to  all 
intents  and  purposes,  as  that  of  the  radical  element  itself.  Sec- 
ondary verb  stems  of  this  type  are  characteristic  of  the  Algonkin 
languages  and   of  Yana. 

11  In  the  Algonkin  languages  all  persons  and  things  are  con- 
ceived of  as  either  animate  or  inanimate,  just  as  in  Latin  or 
German  they  are  conceived  of  as  masculine,  feminine,  or  neuter. 


FORM:  GRAMMATICAL  PROCESSES  75 

functions  performed  by  them  and  their  principles  of 
combination  differ  widely. 

We  have  reserved  the  very  curious  type  of  af- 
fixation known  as  "infixing"  for  separate  illustra- 
tion. It  is  utterly  unknown  in  English,  unless  we 
consider  the  -n-  of  stand  (contrast  stood)  as  an  in- 
fixed element.  The  earlier  Indo-European  languages, 
such  as  Latin,  Greek  and  Sanskrit,  made  a  fairly 
considerable  use  of  infixed  nasals  to  differentiate  the 
present  tense  of  a  certain  class  of  verbs  from  other  forms 
(contrast  Latin  vinc-o  "I  conquer"  with  vic-i  "I  con- 
quered"; Greek  lamh-an-o  "I  take"  with  e-lah-on  "I 
took").  There  are,  however,  more  striking  examples  of 
the  process,  examples  in  which  it  has  assumed  a  more 
clearly  defined  function  than  in  these  Latin  and  Greek 
cases.  It  is  particularly  prevalent  in  many  languages  of 
southeastern  Asia  and  of  the  Malay  archipelago.  Good 
examples  from  Khmer  (Cambodgian)  are  tmeu  "one 
who  walks"  and  daneu  "walking"  (verbal  noun),  both 
derived  from  deu  "to  walk."  Further  examples  may  be 
quoted  from  Bontoc  Igorot,  a  Filipino  language.  Thus, 
an  infixed  -in-  conveys  the  idea  of  the  product  of  an 
accomplished  action,  e.g.,  kayu  "wood,"  kinayu  "gath- 
ered wood."  Infixes  are  also  freely  used  in  the  Bontoc 
Igorot  verb.  Thus,  an  infixed  -uni-  is  characteristic  of 
many  intransitive  verbs  with  personal  pronominal  suf- 
fixes, e.g.,  sad-  **to  wait,"  sumid-ak  "I  wait";  kineg 
"silent,"  kuminek-ak  "I  am  silent."  In  other  verbs 
it  indicates  futurity,  e.g.,  tengao-  "to  celebrate  a  holi- 
day," tumengao-ak  "I  shall  have  a  holiday."  The  past 
tense  is  frequently  indicated  by  an  infixed  -in-;  if  there 
is  already  an  infixed  -um-,  the  two  elements  combine  to 
-in-m-,  e.g.,  kinminek-ak  "I  am  silent."  Obviously  the 
infixing  process  has  in  this  (and  related)  languages  the 


76  LANGUAGE 

same  vitality  that  is  possessed  by  the  commoner  prefixes 
and  suffixes  of  other  languages.  The  process  is  also 
found  in  a  number  of  aboriginal  American  languages. 
The  Yana  plural  is  sometimes  formed  by  an  infixed  ele- 
ment, e.g.,  k'uruwi  "medicine-men,"  k'uwi  ''medicine- 
man"; in  Chinook  an  infixed  -I-  is  used  in  certain  verbs 
to  indicate  repeated  activity,  e.g.,  ksik'ludelk  "she  keeps 
looking  at  him,"  iksik'lutk  "she  looked  at  him"  (radical 
element  -tk) .  A  peculiarly  interesting  type  of  infixation 
is  found  in  the  Siouan  languages,  in  which  certain  verbs 
insert  the  pronominal  elements  into  the  very  body  of  the 
radical  element,  e.g.,  Sioux  cheti  "to  build  a  fire," 
chewati  "I  build  a  fire";  shuta  "to  miss,"  sJiuunta-pi 
*'we  miss." 

A  subsidiary  but  by  no  means  unimportant  grammati- 
cal process  is  that  of  internal  vocalic  or  consonantal 
change.  In  some  languages,  as  in  English  {sing,  sang, 
sung,  song;  goose,  geese),  the  former  of  these  has  be- 
come one  of  the  major  methods  of  indicating  fundamental 
changes  of  grammatical  function.  At  any  rate,  the  proc- 
ess is  alive  enough  to  lead  our  children  into  untrodden 
ways.  We  all  know  of  the  growing  youngster  who 
speaks  of  having  hrung  something,  on  the  analogy  of 
such  forms  as  sung  and  filing.  In  Hebrew,  as  we  have 
seen,  vocalic  change  is  of  even  greater  significance 
than  in  English.  What  is  true  of  Hebrew  is  of  course 
true  of  all  other  Semitic  languages.  A  few  examples 
of  so-called  "broken"  plurals  from  Arabic  ^^  will  sup- 
plement the  Hebrew  verb  forms  that  I  have  given  in 
another  connection.  The  noun  halad  "place"  has  the 
plural  form  hilad;  "  gild  "hide"  forms  the  plural  gulud; 

12  Egyptian  dialect. 

13  There  are  changes  of  accent  and  vocalic  quantity  in  these 
forms  as  well,  but  the  requirements  of  simplicity  force  us  to 
neglect  them. 


FORM:  GRAMMATICAL  PROCESSES  77 

ragil  "man,"  the  plural  rigal;  shihbak  "window,"  the 
plural  shahabik.  Very  similar  phenomena  are  illus- 
trated by  the  Hamitic  languages  of  Northern  Africa, 
e.g.,  Shilh  "  izhil  "hair,"  plural  izhel;  a-sleni  "fish," 
plural  i-slim-en;  sn  "to  know,"  sen  "to  be  knowing"; 
rmi  "to  become  tired,"  riimni  "to  be  tired";  ttss  ^^  "to 
fall  asleep,"  ttoss  "to  sleep."  Strikingly  similar  to 
English  and  Greek  alternations  of  the  type  sing — sang 
and  leip-o  "I  leave,"  leloip-a  "I  have  left,"  are  such 
Somali  ^'^  cases  as  al  "I  am,"  il  "I  was";  i-dah-a  "I 
say,"  i-di  "I  said,"  f^e/i  "say!" 

Vocalic  change  is  of  great  significance  also  in  a  num- 
ber of  American  Indian  languages.  In  the  Athabaskan 
group  many  verbs  change  the  quality  or  quantity  of 
the  vowel  of  the  radical  element  as  it  changes  its  tense 
or  mode.  The  Navaho  verb  for  "I  put  (grain)  into  a 
receptacle"  is  hi-Jii-sh-ju,  in  which  -ja  is  the  radical 
element;  the  past  tense,  hi-M-ja',  has  a  long  a- vowel,  fol- 
lowed by  the  "glottal  stop"  ;  ^'  the  future  is  bi-li-de-sh-ji 
with  complete  change  of  vowel.  In  other  types  of 
Navaho  verbs  the  vocalic  changes  follow  different  lines, 
e.g.,  yali-a-ni-ye  "you  carry  (a  pack)  into  (a  stable)"; 
past,  yah'i-ni-yin  (with  long  i  in  -yin;  -n  is  here  used  to 
indicate  nasalization)  ;  future,  yah-a-di-yeJil  (with  long 
e).  In  another  Indian  language,  Yokuts,^**  vocalic  modi- 
fications affect  both  noun  and  verb  forms.  Thus, 
huchong  "son"  forms  the  plural  bocliang-i  (contrast  the 
objective  huchong-a)  ;  enasli  "grandfather,"  the  plural 
inash-a;  the  verb  engtyim  "to  sleep"  forms  the  continu- 

14  A  Berber  language  of  Morocco. 

15  Some  of  the  Berber  languages  allow  consonantal  combina- 
tions that  seem  unpronounceable   to   us. 

16  One  of  the  Hamitic  languages  of  eastern  Africa. 

17  See  page  49. 

18  Spoken  in  the  south-central  part  of  California. 


78  LANGUAGE 

ative  ingetym-ad  "to  be  sleeping"  and  the  past  ingetym- 
ash. 

Consonantal  change  as  a  functional  process  is  prob- 
ably far  less  common  than  vocalic  modifications,  but 
it  is  not  exactly  rare.  There  is  an  interesting  group 
of  cases  in  English,  certain  nouns  and  corresponding 
verbs  differing  solely  in  that  the  final  consonant  is 
voiceless  or  voiced.  Examples  are  wreath  (with  tJi  as 
in  tliink),  but  to  wreatlie  (with  th  as  in  then);  house, 
but  to  house  (with  s  pronounced  like  z).  That  we  have 
a  distinct  feeling  for  the  interchange  as  a  means  of  dis- 
tinguishing the  noun  from  the  verb  is  indicated  by  the 
extension  of  the  principle  by  many  Americans  to  such 
a  noun  as  rise  (e.g.,  the  rise  of  democracy) — pronounced 
like  rice — in  contrast  to  the  verb  to  rise  {s  like  z). 

In  the  Celtic  languages  the  initial  consonants  undergo 
several  types  of  change  according  to  the  grammatical 
relation  that  subsists  between  the  word  itself  and  the 
preceding  word.  Thus,  in  modern  Irish,  a  word  like 
ho  "ox"  may  under  the  appropriate  circumstances,  take 
the  forms  hho  (pronounce  wo)  or  mo  (e.g.,  an  ho  "the 
ox,"  as  a  subject,  but  tir  Tia  mo  "land  of  the  oxen," 
as  a  possessive  plural).  In  the  verb  the  principle  has  as 
one  of  its  most  striking  consequences  the  "aspiration" 
of  initial  consonants  in  the  past  tenre.  If  a  verb  be- 
gins with  t,  say,  it  changes  the  t  to  th  (now  pronounced 
h)  in  forms  of  the  past;  if  it  begins  with  g,  the  conso- 
nant changes,  in  analogous  forms,  to  gh  (pronounced 
like  a  voiced  spirant  ^^  g  or  like  y,  according  to  the 
nature  of  the  following  vowel).  In  modern  Irish 
the  principle  of  consonantal  change,  which  began  in 
the  oldest  period  of  the  language  as  a  secondary  conse- 
quence of  certain  phonetic  conditions,  has  become  one 

!!•  See  page  50. 


FORM:  GRAMMATICAL  PROCESSES  79 

of  the  primary  grammatical  processes  of  the  language. 

Perhaps  as  remarkable  as  these  Irish  phenomena  are 
the  consonantal  interchanges  of  Ful,  an  African  lan- 
guage of  the  Soudan.  Here  we  find  that  all  nouns  be- 
longing to  the  personal  class  form  the  plural  by  chang- 
ing their  initial  g,  j,  d,  h,  k,  cli,  and  p  to  y  (or  iv),  y,  r, 
w,  h,  s  and  /  respectively;  e.g.,  jim-o  ''companion," 
yim- 'be  " companions ' ' ;  pio-o  ' ' beater, "  fio-'he  " beat- 
ers." Curiously  enough,  nouns  that  belong  to  the  class 
of  things  form  their  singular  and  plural  in  exactly  re- 
verse fashion,  e.g.,  yola-re  "grass-grown  place,"  jola-je 
** grass-grown  places";  fitan-du  "soul,"  pital-i  "souls." 
In  Nootka,  to  refer  to  but  one  other  language  in  which 
the  process  is  found,  the  t  or  tl  -°  of  many  verbal  suf- 
fixes becomes  Id  in  forms  denoting  repetition,  e.g., 
liita^'ato  "to  fall  out,"  Jiita-'ald  "to  keep  falling  out"; 
mat-achislit-utl  "to  fly  on  to  the  water, ' '  mat-achisJit-ohl 
"to  keep  flying  on  to  the  water."  Further,  the  hi  of 
certain  elements  changes  to  a  peculiar  7i-sound  in  plural 
forms,  e.g.,  yak-old  " sore-f aeed, "  yak-oJi  "sore-faced 
(people)." 

Nothing  is  more  natural  than  the  prevalence  of  re- 
duplication, in  other  words,  the  repetition  of  all  or  part 
of  the  radical  element.  The  process  is  generally  em- 
ployed, with  self-evident  symbolism,  to  indicate  such 
concepts  as  distribution,  plurality,  repetition,  customary 
activity,  increase  of  size,  added  intensity,  continuance. 
Even  in  English  it  is  not  unknown,  though  it  is  not  gen- 
erally accounted  one  of  the  typical  formative  devices  of 
our  language.  Such  words  as  goody-goody  and  to  pooh- 
pooh  have  become  accepted  as  part  of  our  normal  vocabu- 
lary, but  the  method  of  duplication  may  on  occasion  be 
used  more  freely  than  is  indicated  by  such  stereotyped 

20  These  orthographies  are  but  makeshifts  for  simple  sounds. 


80  LANGUAGE 

examples.  Such  locutions  as  a  hig  hig  man  or  Let  it 
cool  till  it's  thick  thick  are  far  more  common,  especially 
in  the  speech  of  women  and  children,  than  our  linguistic 
text-books  would  lead  one  to  suppose.  In  a  class  by 
themselves  are  the  really  enormous  number  of  words, 
many  of  them  sound-imitative  or  contemptuous  in  psy- 
chological tone,  that  consist  of  duplications  with  either 
change  of  the  vowel  or  change  of  the  initial  consonant — 
words  of  the  type  sing-song,  riff-raff,  wishy-washy, 
harum-skarum,  roly-poly.  Words  of  this  type  are  all 
but  universal.  Such  examples  as  the  Eussian  Chuda- 
Yudo  (a  dragon),  the  Chinese  ping-pang  "rattling  of 
rain  on  the  roof,"^^  the  Tibetan  kyang-kyong  "lazy," 
and  the  Manchu  porpon  parpan  "blear-eyed"  are  curi- 
ously reminiscent,  both  in  form  and  in  psychology,  of 
words  nearer  home.  But  it  can  hardly  be  said  that 
the  duplicative  process  is  of  a  distinctively  grammatical 
significance  in  English.  We  must  turn  to  other  lan- 
guages for  illustration.  Such  cases  as  Hottentot  go-go 
"to  look  at  carefully"  (from  go  "to  see"),  Somali  fen- 
fen  "to  gnaw  at  on  all  sides"  (from  fen  "to  gnaw  at"), 
Chinook  iwi  iwi  "to  look  about  carefully,  to  examine" 
(from  iwi  "to  appear"),  or  Tsimshian  am' am  "several 
(are)  good"  (from  am  "good")  do  not  depart  from 
the  natural  and  fundamental  range  of  significance  of 
the  process.  A  more  abstract  function  is  illustrated  in 
Ewe,^^  in  which  both  infinitives  and  verbal  adjectives  are 
formed  from  verbs  by  duplication;  e.g.,  yi  "to  go,"  yiyi 
"to  go,  act  of  going";  ivo  "to  do,"  ivowo~^  "done"; 
mawomawo  "not  to  do"  (with  both  duplicated  verb 
stem  and  duplicated  negative  particle).     Causative  du- 

21  Whence  our  ping-pong. 

22  An  African  language  of  the  Guinea  Coast. 

23  In  the  verbal  adjective  the  tone  of  the  second  syllable  differs 
from  that  of  the  first. 


FORM:  GRAMMATICAL  PROCESSES  81 

plications  are  characteristic  of  Hottentot,  e.g.,  gam- 
gam-^  "to  cause  to  tell"  (from  gam  "to  tell").  Or  the 
process  may  be  used  to  derive  verbs  from  nouns,  as  in 
Hottentot  klioe-khoe  "to  talk  Hottentot"  (from  khoe-b 
"man,  Hottentot"),  or  as  in  Kwakiutl  metmat  "to  eat 
clams"  (radical  element  7net-  "clam"). 

The  most  characteristic  examples  of  reduplication  are 
such  as  repeat  only  part  of  the  radical  element.  It  would 
be  possible  to  demonstrate  the  existence  of  a  vast  num- 
ber of  formal  types  of  such  partial  duplication,  accord- 
ing to  whether  the  process  makes  use  of  one  or  more  of 
the  radical  consonants,  preserves  or  weakens  or  alters 
the  radical  vowel,  or  affects  the  beginning,  the  middle, 
or  the  end  of  the  radical  element.  The  functions  are 
even  more  exuberantly  developed  than  with  simple  du- 
plication, though  the  basic  notion,  at  least  in  origin, 
is  nearly  always  one  of  repetition  or  continuance.  Ex- 
amples illustrating  this  fundamental  function  can  be 
quoted  from  all  parts  of  the  globe.  Initially  redupli- 
cating are,  for  instance,  Shilh  ggen  "to  be  sleeping" 
(from  gen  "to  sleep")  ;  Ful  pepeu-'do  "liar"  (i.e.,  "one 
who  always  lies"),  plural  fefeu-'he  (from  fewa  "to 
lie")  ;  Bontoc  Igorot  anak  "child,"  ananak  "children"; 
kamu-ek  "I  hasten,"  kakamu-ek  "I  hasten  more"; 
Tsimshian  gyad  "person,"  gyigyad  "people";  Nass 
gyibayuk  "to  fly,"  gyigyihayuk  "one  who  is  flying." 
Psychologically  comparable,  but  with  the  reduplication 
at  the  end,  are  Somali  ur  "body,"  plural  urar;  Hausa 
suna  "name,"  plural  sunana-ki;  Washo  ^^  gusu  "buf- 
falo," gususu  "buffaloes";  Takelma -®  himi-d-  "to  talk 
to,"  Jiimim-d-  "to  be  accustomed  to  talk  to."     Even 

24  Initial  "click"  (see  page  55,  note  15)  omitted. 

25  An  Indian  language  of  Nevada. 

26  An  Indian  language  of  Oregon. 


82  LANGUAGE 

more  commonly  than  simple  duplication,  this  partial 
duplication  of  the  radical  element  has  taken  on  in  many 
languages  functions  that  seem  in  no  way  related  to 
the  idea  of  increase.  The  best  known  examples  are 
probably  the  initial  reduplication  of  our  older  Indo- 
European  languages,  which  helps  to  form  the  perfect 
tense  of  many  verbs  (e.g.,  Sanskrit  dadarslia  "I  have 
seen,"  Greek  leloipa  "I  have  left,"  Latin  tetigi  "I  have 
touched,"  Gothic  lelot  "I  have  let").  In  Nootka  re- 
duplication of  the  radical  element  is  often  employed  in 
association  with  certain  suffixes;  e.g.,  hlucli-  "woman" 
forms  liluliluch-'ituhl  "to  dream  of  a  woman,"  Jiliihluch- 
k'ok  "resembling  a  woman."  Psychologically  similar 
to  the  Greek  and  Latin  examples  are  many  Takelma 
cases  of  verbs  that  exhibit  two  forms  of  the  stem,  one 
employed  in  the  present  or  past,  the  other  in  the  future 
and  in  certain  modes  and  verbal  derivatives.  The  for- 
mer has  final  reduplication,  which  is  absent  in  the  lat- 
ter; e.g.,  nl-i/eheh-i'n  "I  show  (or  showed)  to  him,"  al- 
yeh-in  "I  shall  show  him." 

We  come  now  to  the  subtlest  of  all  grammatical  proc- 
esses, variations  in  accent,  whether  of  stress  or  pitch. 
The  chief  difficulty  in  isolating  accent  as  a  functional 
process  is  that  it  is  so  often  combined  with  alternations 
in  vocalic  quantity  or  quality  or  complicated  by  the 
presence  of  affixed  elements  that  its  grammatical  value 
appears  as  a  secondary  rather  than  as  a  primary  fea- 
ture. In  Greek,  for  instance,  it  is  characteristic  of  true 
verbal  forms  that  they  throw  the  accent  back  as  far  as 
the  general  accentual  rules  Avill  permit,  while  nouns  may 
be  more  freely  accented.  There  is  thus  a  striking  ac- 
centual difference  between  a  verbal  form  like  elutJiemen 
"we  were  released,"  accented  on  the  second  syllable  of 
the  word,   and   its  participial   derivative   lutJieis  "re- 


FORM:  GRAMMATICAL  PROCESSES  83 

leased, ' '  accented  on  the  last.  The  presence  of  the  char- 
acteristic verbal  elements  e-  and  -me7i  in  the  first  case 
and  of  the  nominal  -s  in  the  second  tends  to  obscure  the 
inherent  value  of  the  accentual  alternation.  This  value 
comes  out  very  neatly  in  such  English  doublets  as  to 
refund  and  a  refund,  to  extract  and  an  extract,  to  come 
down  and  a  come  down,  to  lack  luster  and  lack-luster 
eyes,  in  which  the  difference  between  the  verb  and  the 
noun  is  entirely  a  matter  of  changing  stress.  In  the 
Athabaskan  languages  there  are  not  infrequently  sig- 
nificant alternations  of  accent,  as  in  Navaho  ta-di-gis 
"you  wash  yourself"  (accented  on  the  second  syllable), 
ta-di-gis  "he  washes  himself"  (accented  on  the  first ).-^ 
Pitch  accent  may  be  as  functional  as  stress  and  is 
perhaps  more  often  so.  The  mere  fact,  however,  that 
pitch  variations  are  phonetically  essential  to  the  lan- 
guage, as  in  Chinese  (e.g.,  fe7ii{  "wind"  with  a  level 
tone,  feng  "to  serve"  with  a  falling  tone)  or  as  in  classi- 
cal Greek  (e.g.,  lab-on  "having  taken"  with  a  simple 
or  high  tone  on  the  suffixed  participial  -on,  gunaik-on  "of 
women"  with  a  compound  or  falling  tone  on  the  case 
suffix  -on)  does  not  necessarily  constitute  a  functional, 
or  perhaps  we  had  better  say  grammatical,  use  of  pitch. 
In  such  eases  the  pitch  is  merely  inherent  in  the  radi- 
cal element  or  affix,  as  any  vowel  or  consonant  might 
be.  It  is  different  with  such  Chinese  alternations  as 
chung  (level)  ''middle"  and  cluing  (falling)  "to  hit 
the  middle";  WAai  (rising)  "to  buy"  and  mai  (falling) 
"to  sell";  pei  (falling)  "back"  and  pei  (level)  "to 
carry  on  the  back."  Examples  of  this  type  are  not 
exactly  common  in  Chinese  and  the  language  cannot  be 
said  to  possess  at  present  a  definite  feeling  for  tonal  dif- 

^7  It  is  not  unlikely,  however,  that  these  Athabaskan  alterna- 
tions are  primarily  tonal  in  character. 


84  LANGUAGE 

ferences  as  symbolic  of  the  distinction  between  noun 
and  verb. 

There  are  languages,  however,  in  which  such  differ- 
ences are  of  the  most  fundamental  grammatical  impor- 
tance. They  are  particularly  common  in  the  Soudan. 
In  Ewe,  for  instance,  there  are  formed  from  suho  "to 
serve"  two  reduplicated  forms,  an  infinitive  suhosubo 
"to  serve,"  with  a  low  tone  on  the  first  two  syllables 
and  a  high  one  on  the  last  two,  and  an  abjectival  suho- 
suho  "serving,"  in  which  all  the  syllables  have  a  high 
tone.  Even  more  striking  are  cases  furnished  by  Shil- 
luk,  one  of  the  languages  of  the  headwaters  of  the  Nile. 
The  plural  of  the  noun  often  differs  in  tone  from  the 
singular,  e.g.,  yit  (high)  "ear"  but  yit  (low)  "ears." 
In  the  pronoun  three  forms  may  be  distinguished  by  tone 
alone ;  e  "  he  "  has  a  high  tone  and  is  sub j  eeti ve,  -e  "  him ' ' 
(e.g.,  a  chwol-e  "he  called  him")  has  a  low  tone  and  is 
objective,  -e  "his"  (e.g.,  wod-e  "his  house")  has  a 
middle  tone  and  is  possessive.  Prom  the  verbal  ele- 
ment gwed-  "to  write"  are  formed  gwcd-o  "(he) 
writes"  with  a  low  tone,  the  passive  gwet  "(it  was) 
written"  with  a  falling  tone,  the  imperative  gwet 
"write!"  with  a  rising  tone,  and  the  verbal  noun  gwet 
"writing"  with  a  middle  tone.  In  aboriginal  America 
also  pitch  accent  is  known  to  occur  as  a  grammatical 
process.  A  good  example  of  such  a  pitch  language  is 
Tlingit,  spoken  by  the  Indians  of  the  southern  coast 
of  Alaska.  In  this  language  many  verbs  vary  the  tone 
of  the  radical  element  according  to  tense ;  Jiun  ' '  to  sell, ' ' 
siyi  "to  hide,"  tin  "to  see,"  and  numerous  other  radi- 
cal elements,  if  low-toned,  refer  to  past  time,  if  high- 
toned,  to  the  future.  Another  type  of  function  is  illus- 
trated by  the  Takelma  forms  liel  "song,"  with  falling 
pitch,  but  hel  "sing!"  with  a  rising  inflection;  parallel 


FORM:  GRAMMATICAL  PROCESSES  85 

to  these  forms  are  sel  (falling)  "black  paint,"  sel  (ris- 
ing) "paint  it!"  All  in  all  it  is  clear  that  pitch  ac- 
cent, like  stress  and  vocalic  or  consonantal  modifications, 
is  far  less  infrequently  employed  as  a  grammatical  proc- 
ess than  our  own  habits  of  speech  would  prepare  us  tc 
believe  probable. 


FORM  IN  LANGUAGE:  GRAMMATICAL 
CONCEPTS 

We  have  seen  that  the  single  word  expresses  either 
a  simple  concept  or  a  combination  of  concepts  so  inter- 
related as  to  form  a  psychological  unity.  We  have,  fur- 
thermore, briefly  reviewed  from  a  strictly  formal  stand- 
point the  main  processes  that  are  used  by  all  known 
languages  to  affect  the  fundamental  concepts — those  em- 
bodied in  unanalyzable  words  or  in  the  radical  elements 
of  words — by  the  modifying  or  formative  influence  of 
subsidiary  concepts.  In  this  chapter  we  shall  look  a 
little  more  closely  into  the  nature  of  the  world  of  con- 
cepts, in  so  far  as  that  world  is  reflected  and  Systematized 
in  linguistic  structure. 

Let  us  begin  with  a  simple  sentence  that  involves  va- 
rious kinds  of  concepts — the  fanner  kills  the  duckling. 
A  rough  and  ready  analysis  discloses  here  the  presence 
of  three  distinct  and  fundamental  concepts  that  are 
brought  into  connection  with  each  other  in  a  number  of 
ways.  These  three  concepts  are  "farmer"  (the  subject 
3f  discourse),  "kill"  (defining  the  nature  of  the  activity 
which  the  sentence  informs  us  al)out),  and  "duckling" 
(another  subject  ^  of  discourse  that  takes  an  important 
though  somewhat  passive  part  in  this  activity).  We  can 
visualize  the  farmer  and  the  duckling  and  we  have  also 
no  difficulty  in  constructing  an  image  of  the  killing.    In 

iNot  in  its  technical  sense. 

86 


FORM:  GRAMMATICAL  CONCEPTS  87 

other  words,  the  elements  farmer,  kill,  and  duckling  de- 
fine concepts  of  a  concrete  order. 

But  a  more  careful  linguistic  analysis  soon  brings  us 
to  see  that  the  two  subjects  of  discourse,  however  simply 
we  may  visualize  them,  are  not  expressed  quite  as  di- 
rectly, as  immediately,  as  we  feel  them.  A  "farmer" 
is  in  one  sense  a  perfectly  unified  concept,  in  another  he 
is  * '  one  who  farms. ' '  The  concept  conveyed  by  the  radi- 
cal element  (faron-)  is  not  one  of  personality  at  all  but 
of  an  industrial  activity  {to  farm),  itself  based  on  the 
concept  of  a  particular  type  of  object  (a  farm).  Simi- 
larly, the  concept  of  duckliyig  is  at  one  remove  from  that 
which  is  expressed  by  the  radical  element  of  the  word, 
duck.  This  element,  which  may  occur  as  an  independ- 
ent word,  refers  to  a  whole  class  of  animals,  big  and 
little,  while  duckling  is  limited  in  its  application  to  the 
young  of  that  class.  The  word  farm  er  has  an  ' '  agentive '  * 
suffix  -er  that  performs  the  function  of  indicating  the 
one  that  carries  out  a  given  activity,  in  this  case  that 
of  farming.  It  transforms  the  verb  to  farm  into  an 
agentive  noun  precisely  as  it  transforms  the  verbs  to 
sing,  to  paint,  to  teach  into  the  corresponding  agentive 
nouns  singer,  painter,  teaclier.  The  element  -ling  is  not 
so  freely  used,  but  its  significance  is  obvious.  It  adds  to 
the  basic  concept  the  notion  of  smallness  (as  also  in 
gosling,  fledgeling)  or  the  somewhat  related  notion  of 
"contemptible"  (as  in  weakling,  princeling,  liircling). 
The  agentive  -er  and  the  diminutive  -ling  both  convey 
fairly  concrete  ideas  (roughly  those  of  "doer"  and  "lit- 
tle"), but  the  concreteness  is  not  stressed.  They  do 
not  so  much  define  distinct  concepts  as  mediate  between 
concepts.  The  -er  of  farmer  does  not  quite  say  *  *  one  who 
(farms)  "  it  merely  indicates  that  the  sort  of  person  we 
call  a  "farmer"  is  closely  enough  associated  with  ac- 


8S  LANGUAGE 

t,ivity  on  a  farm  to  be  conventionally  thought  of  as  al- 
ways so  occupied.  He  may,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  go  to 
town  and  engage  in  any  pursuit  but  farming,  yet  his 
linguistic  label  remains  "farmer."  Language  here  be- 
trays a  certain  helplessness  or,  if  one  prefers,  a  stub- 
born tendency  to  look  away  from  the  immediately  sug- 
gested function,  trusting  to  the  imagination  and  to  usage 
to  fill  in  the  transitions  of  thought  and  the  details  of 
application  that  distinguish  one  concrete  concept  (to 
farm)  from  another  "derived"  one  {farmer).  It  would 
be  impossible  for  any  language  to  express  every  con- 
crete idea  by  an  independent  word  or  radical  element. 
The  concreteness  of  experience  is  infinite,  the  resources 
of  the  richest  language  are  strictly  limited.  It  must  per- 
force throw  countless  concepts  under  the  rubric  of  cer- 
tain basic  ones,  using  other  concrete  or  semi-concrete 
ideas  as  functional  mediators.  The  ideas  expressed  by 
these  mediating  elements — they  may  be  independent 
words,  affixes,  or  modifications  of  the  radical  element — 
may  be  called  "derivational"  or  "qualifying."  Some 
concrete  concepts,  such  as  kill,  are  expressed  radically; 
others,  such  as  farmer  and  duckling,  are  expressed 
derivatively.  Corresponding  to  these  two  modes  of  ex- 
pression we  have  two  types  of  concepts  and  of  linguistic 
elements,  radical  {f<irm,  kill,  duck)  and  derivational 
{-er,  -ling).  When  a  word  (or  unified  group  of  words) 
contains  a  derivational  element  (or  word)  the  concrete 
significance  of  the  radical  element  {farm-,  duck-)  tends 
to  fade  from  consciousness  and  to  yield  to  a  new  concrete- 
ness {farmer,  duckling)  that  is  synthetic  in  expression 
rather  than  in  thought.  In  our  sentence  the  concepts 
of  farm  and  duck  are  not  really  involved  at  all;  they  are 
merely  latent,  for  formal  reasons,  in  the  linguistic  ex- 
pression. 


FORM:  GRAMMATICAL  CONCEPTS  89 

Keturning  to  this  sentence,  we  feel  that  the  analysis 
of  farmer  and  duckling  are  practically  irrelevant  to  an 
understanding  of  its  content  and  entirely  irrelevant  to 
a  feeling  for  the  structure  of  the  sentence  as  a  whole. 
From  the  standpoint  of  the  sentence  the  derivational 
elements  -er  and  -ling  are  merely  details  in  the  local 
economy  of  two  of  its  terms  {farmer,  duckling)  that  it 
accepts  as  units  of  expression.  This  indifference  of  the 
sentence  as  such  to  some  part  of  the  analysis  of  its  words 
is  shown  by  the  fact  that  if  we  substitute  such  radical 
words  as  man  and  chick  for  farmer  and  duckling,  we 
obtain  a  new  material  content,  it  is  true,  but  not  in  the 
least  a  new  structuial  mold.  We  can  go  further  and 
substitute  another  activity  for  that  of  ''killing,"  say 
"taking."  The  new  sentence,  the  man  takes  the  chick, 
is  totally  different  from  the  first  sentence  in  what  it 
conveys,  not  in  how  it  conveys  it.  We  feel  instinctively, 
without  the  slightest  attempt  at  conscious  analysis,  that 
the  two  sentences  fit  precisely  the  same  pattern,  that  they 
are  really  the  same  fundamental  sentence,  differing  only 
in  their  material  trappings.  In  other  words,  they  express 
identical  relational  concepts  in  an  identical  manner. 
The  manner  is  here  threefold — the  use  of  an  inherently 
relational  word  (the)  in  analogous  positions,  the  analo- 
gous sequence  (subject;  predicate,  consisting  of  verb 
and  object)  of  the  concrete  terms  of  the  sentence,  and 
the  use  of  the  suffixed  element  -s  in  the  verb. 

Change  any  of  these  features  of  the  sentence  and  it 
becomes  modified,  slightly  or  seriously,  in  some  purely 
relational,  non-material  regard.  If  the  is  omitted 
{farmer  kills  duckling,  man  takes  chick),  the  sentence 
becomes  impossible;  it  falls  into  no  recognized  formal 
pattern  and  the  two  subjects  of  discourse  seem  to  hang 
incompletely  in  the  void.    We  feel  that  there  is  no  rela- 


90  LANGUAGE 

tion  established  between  either  of  them  and  what  is 
already  in  the  minds  of  the  speaker  and  his  auditor. 
As  soon  as  a  the  is  put  before  the  two  nouns,  we  feel 
relieved.  We  know  that  the  farmer  and  duckling  which 
the  sentence  tells  us  about  are  the  same  farmer  and 
duckling  that  we  had  been  talking  about  or  hearing 
about  or  thinking  about  some  time  before.  If  I  meet  a 
man  who  is  not  looking  at  and  knows  nothing  about  the 
farmer  in  question,  I  am  likely  to  be  stared  at  for  my 
pains  if  I  announce  to  him  that  "the  farmer  [what 
farmer?]  kills  the  duckling  [didn't  know  he  had  any, 
whoever  he  is]."  If  the  fact  nevertheless  seems  interest- 
ing enough  to  communicate,  I  should  be  compelled  to 
speak  of  *'a  farmer  up  my  way"  and  of  *'a  duckling  of 
his."  These  little  words,  the  and  a,  have  the  important 
function  of  establishing  a  definite  or  an  indefinite 
reference. 

If  I  omit  the  first  the  and  also  leave  out  the  suffixed 
-s,  I  obtain  an  entirely  new  set  of  relations.  Farmer, 
kill  the  duckling  implies  that  I  am  now  speaking  to  the 
farmer,  not  merely  about  him ;  further,  that  he  is  not 
actually  killing  the  bird,  but  is  being  ordered  by  me 
to  do  so.  The  subjective  relation  of  the  first  sentence 
has  become  a  vocative  one,  one  of  address,  and  the  ac- 
tivity is  conceived  in  terms  of  command,  not  of  state- 
ment. We  conclude,  therefore,  that  if  the  farmer  is  to 
be  merely  talked  about,  the  little  the  must  go  back  into 
its  place  and  the  -s  must  not  be  removed.  The  latter 
element  clearly  defines,  or  rather  helps  to  define,  state- 
ment as  contrasted  with  command.  I  find,  moreover, 
that  if  I  wish  to  speak  of  several  farmers,  I  cannot  say 
the  farmers  kills  the  duckling,  but  must  say  the  farmers 
kill  the  duckling.  Evidently  -s  involves  the  notion  of 
singularity  in  the  subject.    If  the  noun  is  singular,  the 


FORM:  GRAMMATICAL  CONCEPTS  91 

verb  must  have  a  form  to  correspond;  if  the  noun  is 
plural,  the  verb  has  another,  corresponding  form.^  Com- 
parison with  such  forms  as  7  kill  and  you  kill  shows, 
moreover,  that  the  -s  has  exclusive  reference  to  a  per- 
son other  than  the  speaker  or  the  one  spoken  to.  We 
conclude,  therefore,  that  it  connotes  a  personal  relation 
as  well  as  the  notion  of  singularity.  And  comparison 
with  a  sentence  like  the  fanner  killed  the  duckling  indi- 
cates that  there  is  implied  in  this  overburdened  -s  a 
distinct  reference  to  present  time.  Statement  as  such 
and  personal  reference  may  well  be  looked  upon  as  in- 
herently relational  concepts.  Number  is  evidently  felt 
by  those  who  speak  English  as  involving  a  necessary  re- 
lation, otherwise  there  would  be  no  reason  to  express 
the  concept  twice,  in  the  noun  and  in  the  verb.  Time 
also  is  clearly  felt  as  a  relational  concept ;  if  it  were 
not,  we  should  be  allowed  to  say  tlie  farmer  killed-s  to 
correspond  to  the  farmer  kills.  Of  the  four  concepts 
inextricably  interwoven  in  the  -s  suffix,  all  are  felt  as 
relational,  two  necessarily  so.  The  distinction  between 
a  truly  relational  concept  and  one  that  is  so  felt  and 
treated,  though  it  need  not  be  in  the  nature  of  things, 
will  receive  further  attention  in  a  moment. 

Finally,  I  can  radically  disturb  the  relational  cut  of 
the  sentence  by  changing  the  order  of  its  elements.  If 
the  positions  of  farmer  and  kills  are  interchanged, 
the  sentence  reads  kills  the  farmer  the  duckling,  which 
is  most  naturally  interpreted  as  an  unusual  but  not  un- 
intelligible mode  of  asking  the  question,  does  the  farmer 
kill  the  duckling f  In  this  new  sentence  the  act  is  not 
conceived  as  necessarily  taking  place  at  all.  It  may 
or  it  may  not  be  happening,  the  implication  being  that 

2  It  is,  of  course,  an  "accident"  that  -s  denotes  plurality  in  the 
noun,  singularity  in  the  verb. 


92  LANGUAGE 

the  speaker  wishes  to  know  the  truth  of  the  matter  and 
that  the  person  spoken  to  is  expected  to  give  him  the 
information.  The  interrogative  sentence  possesses  an 
entirely  different  "modality"  from  the  declarative  one 
and  implies  a  markedly  different  attitude  of  the  speaker 
towards  his  companion.  An  even  more  striking  change 
in  personal  relations  is  effected  if  we  interchange  the 
farmer  and  tlic  duckling.  The  duckling  kills  the  farmer 
involves  precisely  the  same  subjects  of  discourse  and 
the  same  type  of  activity  as  our  first  sentence,  but  the 
roles  of  these  subjects  of  discourse  are  now  reversed. 
The  duckling  has  turned,  like  the  proverbial  worm,  or,  to 
put  it  in  grammatical  terminology,  what  was  "subject" 
is  now  "object,"  what  was  object  is  now  subject. 

The  following  tabular  statement  analyzes  the  sentence 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  concepts  expressed  in  it 
and  of  the  grammatical  processes  employed  for  their 
expression. 

I.    Concrete  Concepts: 

1.  First  subject  of  discourse:  farmer 

2.  Second  subject  of  discourse:  duckling 

3.  Activity:  kill 
analyzable  into: 

A.  Radical  Concepts: 

1.  Verb :  (to)  farm 

2.  Noun :  duck 

3.  Verb:  kill 

B.  Derivational  Concepts: 

1.  Agentive :  expressed  by  suffix  -er 

2.  Dirainutive :  expressed  by  suffix  -ling 
II.   Relational  Concepts: 

Reference : 

1.  Definiteness  of  reference  to  first  subject  of  dis- 
course: expressed  by  first  the,  which  has  pre- 
posed  position 


FORM:  GRAMMATICAL  CONCEPTS  93 

2.  Definiteness  of  reference  to  second  subject  of  dis- 

course: expressed  by  second  the,  which  has  pro- 
posed position 
Modality : 

3.  Declarative:   expressed  by  sequence  of  "subject" 

plus  verb ;  and  implied  by  suffixed  -s 
Personal  relations : 

4.  Subjectivity  of  farmer:  expressed  by  position  of 

farmer  before  kills;  and  by  suffixed  -s 

5.  Objectivity  of  duckling:  expressed  by  position  of 

duckling  after  kills 
Number : 

6.  Singularity    of    first    subject    of    discourse:    ex- 

pressed by  lack  of  plural  suffix  in  farmer;  and 
by  suffix  -s  in  following  verb 

7.  Singularity  of  second  subject  of  discourse :   ex- 

pressed by  lack  of  plural  suffix  in  duckling 
Time: 

8.  Present:  expressed  by  lack  of  preterit  suffix  in 

verb;  and  by  suffixed  -s 

In  this  short  sentence  of  five  words  there  are  expressed, 
therefore,  thirteen  distinct  concepts,  of  which  three  are 
radical  and  concrete,  two  derivational,  and  eight  rela- 
tional. Perhaps  the  most  striking  result  of  the  analysis 
is  a  renewed  realization  of  the  curious  lack  of  accord  in 
our  language  between  function  and  form.  The  method 
of  suffixing  is  used  both  for  derivational  and  for  rela- 
tional elements ;  independent  words  or  radical  elements 
express  both  concrete  ideas  (objects,  activities,  qualities) 
and  relational  ideas  (articles  like  the  and  a;  words  defin- 
ing case  relations,  like  of,  to,  for,  with,  by;  words  defin- 
ing local  relations,  like  in,  on,  at)  ;  the  same  relational 
concept  may  be  expressed  more  than  once  (thus,  the  sin- 
gularity of  farmer  is  both  negatively  expressed  in  the 
noun  and  positively  in  the  verb)  ;  and  one  element  may 


94  LANGUAGE 

convey  a  group  of  interwoven  concepts  rather  than  one 
definite  concept  alone  (thus  the  -s  of  kills  embodies  no 
less  than  four  logically  independent  relations). 

Our  analysis  may  seem  a  bit  labored,  but  only  be- 
cause we  are  so  accustomed  to  our  own  well-worn  grooves 
of  expression  that  they  have  come  to  be  felt  as  inevitable. 
Yet  destructive  analysis  of  the  familiar  is  the  only 
method  of  approach  to  an  understanding  of  fundamen- 
tally different  modes  of  expression.  When  one  has 
learned  to  feel  what  is  fortuitous  or  illogical  or  unbal- 
anced in  the  structure  of  his  own  language,  he  is  already 
well  on  the  way  towards  a  sympathetic  grasp  of  the 
expression  of  the  various  classes  of  concepts  in  alien 
types  of  speech.  Not  everything  that  is  "outlandish" 
is  intrinsically  illogical  or  far-fetched.  It  is  often  pre- 
cisely the  familiar  that  a  wider  perspective  reveals  as 
the  curiously  exceptional.  From  a  purely  logical  stand- 
point it  is  obvious  that  there  is  no  inherent  reason  why 
the  concepts  expressed  in  our  sentence  should  have  been 
singled  out,  treated,  and  grouped  as  they  have  been  and 
not  otherwise.  The  sentence  is  the  outgrowth  of  his- 
torical and  of  unreasoning  psychological  forces  rather 
than  of  a  logical  synthesis  of  elements  that  have  been 
clearly  grasped  in  their  individuality.  This  is  the  case, 
to  a  greater  or  less  degree,  in  all  languages,  though  in 
the  forms  of  many  we  find  a  more  coherent,  a  more  con- 
sistent, reflection  than  in  our  English  forms  of  that  un- 
conscious analysis  into  individual  concepts  which  is 
never  entirely  absent  from  speech,  however  it  may  be 
complicated  with  or  overlaid  by  the  more  irrational 
factors. 

A  cursory  examination  of  other  languages,  near  and 
far,  would  soon  show  that  some  or  all  of  the  thirteen 
concepts  that  our  sentence  happens  to  embody  may  not 


FORM:  GRAMMATICAL  CONCEPTS  95 

only  be  expressed  in  different  form  but  that  they  may 
be  differently  grouped  among  themselves;  that  some 
among  them  may  be  dispensed  with;  and  that  other 
concepts,  not  considered  worth  expressing  in  English 
idiom,  may  be  treated  as  absolutely  indispensable  to  the 
intelligible  rendering  of  the  proposition.  First  as  to 
a  different  method  of  handling  such  concepts  as  we  have 
found  expressed  in  the  English  sentence.  If  we  turn 
to  German,  we  find  that  in  the  equivalent  sentence  (Der 
Bauer  totet  das  Entelein)  the  definiteness  of  reference 
expressed  by  the  English  the  is  unavoidably  coupled  with 
three  other  concepts — number  (both  der  and  das  are  ex- 
plicitly singular),  case  {der  is  subjective;  das  is  sub- 
jective or  objective,  by  elimination  therefore  objective), 
and  gender,  a  new  concept  of  the  relational  order  that 
is  not  in  this  case  explicitly  involved  in  English  {der  is 
masculine,  das  is  neuter).  Indeed,  the  chief  burden 
of  the  expression  of  case,  gender,  and  number  is  in  the 
German  sentence  borne  by  the  particles  of  reference 
rather  than  by  the  words  that  express  the  concrete  con- 
cepts {Bauer,  Entelein)  to  which  these  relational  concepts 
ought  logically  to  attach  themselves.  In  the  sphere  of 
concrete  concepts  too  it  is  worth  noting  that  the  German 
splits  up  the  idea  of  "killing"  into  the  basic  concept  of 
''dead"  {tot)  and  the  derivational  one  of  "causing  to 
do  (or  be)  so  and  so"  (by  the  method  of  vocalic  change, 
tot-);  the  German  tot-et  (analytically  #of- +  vowel 
change  + -eO  "causes  to  be  dead"  is,  approximately, 
the  formal  equivalent  of  our  dead-en-s,  though  the  idio- 
matic application  of  this  latter  word  is  different.^ 

Wandering  still  further  afield,  we  may  glance  at  the 

3  "To  cause  to  be  dead"  or  "to  cause  to  die"  in  the  sense  of 
"to  kill"  is  an  exceedingly  wide-spread  usage.  It  is  found,  for 
instance^  also  in  Nootka  and  Sioux. 


96  LANGUAGE 

Yana  method  of  expression.  Literally  translated,  the 
equivalent  Yana  sentence  would  read  something  like 
"kill-s  he  farmer*  he  to  duck-ling,"  in  which  ''he"  and 
"to"  are  rather  awkward  English  renderings  of  a  gen- 
eral third  personal  pronoun  {lie,  slie,  it,  or  they)  and  an 
objective  particle  which  indicates  that  the  following 
noun  is  connected  with  the  verb  otherwise  than  as  sub- 
ject. The  suffixed  element  in  "kill-s"  corresponds  to 
the  English  suffix  with  the  important  exceptions  that  it 
makes  no  reference  to  the  number  of  the  subject  and 
that  the  statement  is  known  to  be  true,  that  it  is  vouched 
for  by  the  speaker.  Number  is  only  indirectly  expressed 
in  the  sentence  in  so  far  as  there  is  no  specific  verb 
suffix  indicating  plurality  of  the  subject  nor  specific 
plural  elements  in  the  two  nouns.  Had  the  statement 
been  made  on  another's  authority,  a  totally  different 
"tense-modal"  suffix  would  have  had  to  be  used.  The 
pronouns  of  reference  ("he")  imply  nothing  by  them- 
selves as  to  number,  gender,  or  case.  Gender,  indeed, 
is  completely  absent  in  Yana  as  a  relational  category. 

The  Yana  sentence  has  already  illustrated  the  point 
that  certain  of  our  supposedly  essential  concepts  may 
be  ignored;  both  the  Yana  and  the  German  sentence 
illustrate  the  further  point  that  certain  concepts  may 
need  expression  for  Avhich  an  English-speaking  person, 
or  rather  the  English-speaking  habit,  finds  no  need  what- 
ever. One  could  go  on  and  give  endless  examples  of 
such  deviations  from  English  form,  but  we  shall  have 
to  content  ourselves  with  a  few  more  indications.  In 
the  Chinese  sentence  "Man  kill  duck,"  which  may  be 
looked  upon  as  the  practical  equivalent  of  "The  man 

4  Agriculture  was  not  practised  by  the  Yana.  Tlio  verbal  idea 
of  "to  farm"  would  probably  be  expressed  in  some  sueli  synthetic 
manner  as  "to  dig-earth"  or  "to  grow-cause."  There  are  suf* 
fixed  elements  corresjionding  to  -er  and  -ling. 


FORM:  GRAMMATICAL  CONCEPTS  97 

kills  the  duck,"  there  is  by  no  means  present  for  the 
Chinese  consciousness  that  childish,  halting,  empty  feel- 
ing which  we  experience  in  the  literal  English  transla- 
tion. The  three  concrete  concepts — two  objects  and  an 
action — are  each  directly  expressed  by  a  monosyllabic 
word  which  is  at  the  same  time  a  radical  element;  the 
two  relational  concepts — "subject"  and  "object" — are 
expressed  solely  by  the  position  of  the  concrete  words 
before  and  after  the  word  of  action.  And  that  is  all. 
Definiteness  or  indefiniteness  of  reference,  number,  per- 
sonality as  an  inherent  aspect  of  the  verb,  tense,  not 
to  speak  of  gender — all  these  are  given  no  expression  in 
the  Chinese  sentence,  which,  for  all  that,  is  a  perfectly 
adequate  communication — provided,  of  course,  there  is 
that  context,  that  background  of  mutual  understanding 
that  is  essential  to  the  complete  intelligibility  of  all 
speech.  Nor  does  this  qualification  impair  our  argu- 
ment, for  in  the  English  sentence  too  we  leave  unex- 
pressed a  large  number  of  ideas  which  are  either  taken 
for  granted  or  which  have  been  developed  or  are  about 
to  be  developed  in  the  course  of  the  conversation.  Noth- 
ing has  been  said,  for  example,  in  the  English,  German, 
Yana,  or  Chinese  sentence  as  to  the  place  relations  of 
the  farmer,  the  duck,  the  speaker,  and  the  listener.  Are 
the  farmer  and  the  duck  both  visible  or  is  one  or  the 
other  invisible  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  speaker, 
and  are  both  placed  within  the  horizon  of  the  speaker, 
the  listener,  or  of  some  indefinite  point  of  reference  "off 
yonder"?  In  other  words,  to  paraphrase  awkwardly 
certain  latent  "demonstrative"  ideas,  does  this  farmer 
(invisible  to  us  but  standing  behind  a  door  not  far 
away  from  me,  you  being  seated  yonder  well  out  of 
reach)  kill  that  duckling  (which  belongs  to  you)  ?  or 
does  that  farmer  (who  lives  in  your  neighborhood  and 


98  LANGUAGE 

whom  we  see  over  there)  kill  that  duckling  (that  be- 
longs to  him)  ?  This  type  of  demonstrative  elaboration 
is  foreign  to  our  way  of  thinking,  but  it  would  seem  very 
natural,  indeed  unavoidable,  to  a  Kwakiutl  Indian. 

What,  then,  are  the  absolutely  essential  concepts  in 
speech,  the  concepts  that  must  be  expressed  if  language 
is  to  be  a  satisfactory  means  of  communication? 
Clearly  we  must  have,  first  of  all,  a  large  stock  of  basic 
or  radical  concepts,  the  concrete  wherewithal  of  speech. 
"We  must  have  objects,  actions,  qualities  to  talk  about, 
and  these  must  have  their  corresponding  symbols  in 
independent  words  or  in  radical  elements.  No  proposi- 
tion, however  abstract  its  intent,  is  humanly  possible 
without  a  tying  on  at  one  or  more  points  to  the  con- 
crete world  of  sense.  In  every  intelligible  proposition 
at  least  two  of  these  radical  ideas  must  be  expressed, 
though  in  exceptional  cases  one  or  even  both  may  be 
understood  from  the  context.  And,  secondly,  such  re- 
lational concepts  must  be  expressed  as  moor  the  concrete 
concepts  to  each  other  and  construct  a  definite,  funda- 
mental form  of  proposition.  In  this  fundamental  form 
there  must  be  no  doubt  as  to  the  nature  of  the  rela- 
tions that  obtain  between  the  concrete  concepts.  We 
must  know  what  concrete  concept  is  directly  or  indi- 
rectly related  to  what  other,  and  how.  If  we  wish  to 
talk  of  a  thing  and  an  action,  we  must  know  if  they  are 
coordinately  related  to  each  other  (e.g.,  "He  is  fond  of 
ivine  and  gamhling")  ;  or  if  the  thing  is  conceived  of  as 
the  starting  point,  the  "doer"  of  the  action,  or,  as  it 
is  customary  to  say,  the  "subject"  of  which  the  action 
is  predicated ;  or  if,  on  the  contrary,  it  is  the  end  point, 
the  "object"  of  the  action.  If  I  wish  to  communicate 
an  intelligible  idea  about  a  farmer,  a  duckling,  and 
the  act  of  killing,  it  is  not  enough  to  state  the  linguistic 


FORM:  GRAMMATICAL  CONCEPTS  99 

symbols  for  these  concrete  ideas  in  any  order,  higgledy- 
piggledy,  trusting  that  the  hearer  may  construct  some 
kind  of  a  relational  pattern  out  of  the  general  probabili- 
ties of  the  case.  The  fundamental  syntactic  relations 
must  be  unambiguously  expressed.  I  can  afford  to  be 
silent  on  the  subject  of  time  and  place  and  number  and 
of  a  host  of  other  possible  types  of  concepts,  but  I  can 
find  no  way  of  dodging  the  issue  as  to  who  is  doing  the 
killing.  There  is  no  known  language  that  can  or  does 
dodge  it,  any  more  than  it  succeeds  in  saying  something 
without  the  use  of  symbols  for  the  concrete  concepts. 

We  are  thus  once  more  reminded  of  the  distinction 
between  essential  or  unavoidable  relational  concepts  and 
the  dispensable  type.  The  former  are  universally  ex- 
pressed, the  latter  are  but  sparsely  developed  in  some 
languages,  elaborated  with  a  bewildering  exuberance  in 
others.  But  what  prevents  us  from  throwing  in  these 
"dispensable"  or  "secondary"  relational  concepts  with 
the  large,  floating  group  of  derivational,  qualifying  con- 
cepts that  we  have  already  discussed?  Is  there,  after 
all  is  said  and  done,  a  fundamental  difference  between 
a  qualifying  concept  like  the  negative  in  unJieaWiy  and 
a  relational  one  like  the  number  concept  in  hool's?  If 
unliealtJiy  may  be  roughly  paraphrased  as  vot  healthy, 
may  not  hooks  be  just  as  legitimately  paraphrased,  bar- 
ring the  violence  to  English  idiom,  as  several  hook? 
There  are,  indeed,  languages  in  which  the  plural,  if  ex- 
pressed at  all,  is  conceived  of  in  the  same  sober,  re- 
stricted, one  might  almost  say  casual,  spirit  in  which 
we  feel  the  negative  in  unhealthy.  For  such  languages 
the  number  concept  has  no  syntactic  significance  what- 
ever, is  not  essentially  conceived  of  as  defining  a  rela- 
tion, but  falls  into  the  group  of  derivational  or  even 
of  basic  concepts.     In  English,  however,  as  in  French, 


100  LANGUAGE 

German,  Latin,  Greek — indeed  in  all  the  languages  that 
we  have  most  familiarity  with —  the  idea  of  number  is 
not  merely  appended  to  a  given  concept  of  a  thing.  It 
ma}^  have  something  of  this  merely  qualifying  value,  but 
its  force  extends  far  beyond.  It  infects  much  else  in 
the  sentence,  molding  other  concepts,  even  such  as  have 
no  intelligible  relation  to  number,  into  forms  that  are 
said  to  correspond  to  or  "agree  with"  the  basic  concept 
to  which  it  is  attached  in  the  first  instance.  If  "a  man 
falls"  but  "men  fall"  in  English,  it  is  not  because  of 
any  inherent  change  that  has  taken  place  in  the  nature 
of  the  action  or  because  the  idea  of  plurality  inherent 
in  "men"  must,  in  the  very  nature  of  ideas,  relate  itself 
also  to  the  action  performed  by  these  men.  What  we  are 
doing  in  these  sentences  is  what  most  languages,  in 
greater  or  less  degree  and  in  a  hundred  varying  ways, 
are  in  the  habit  of  doing — throwing  a  bold  bridge  be- 
tween the  two  basically  distinct  types  of  concept,  the 
concrete  and  the  abstractly  relational,  infecting  the  lat- 
ter, as  it  were,  with  the  color  and  grossness  of  the  for- 
mer. By  a  certain  violence  of  metaphor  the  material 
concept  is  forced  to  do  duty  for  (or  intertwine  itself 
with)  the  strictly  relational. 

The  ease  is  even  more  obvious  if  we  take  gender  as  our 
text.  In  the  two  English  phrases,  "The  white  woman 
that  comes"  and  "The  white  men  that  come,"  we  are 
not  reminded  that  gender,  as  well  as  number,  may  be 
elevated  into  a  secondary  relational  concept.  It  would 
seem  a  little  far-fetched  to  make  of  masculinity  and 
femininity,  crassly  material,  philosophically  accidental 
concepts  that  they  are,  a  means  of  relating  quality  and 
person,  person  and  action,  nor  would  it  easily  occur 
to  us,  if  we  had  not  studied  the  classics,  that  it  was 
anything  but  absurd  to  inject  into  two  such  highly  at* 


FORM:  GRAMMATICAL  CONCEPTS  101 

tenuated  relational  concepts  as  are  expressed  by  "the" 
and  "that"  the  combined  notions  of  number  and  sex. 
Yet  all  this,  and  more,  happens  in  Latin,  Ilia  alba 
femina  quae  venit  and  illi  alhi  liomines  qui  veniunt, 
conceptually  translated,  amount  to  this:  i/ia^-one-femi- 
nine-doer  ^  one-f eminine-i6'7uYe-doer  feminine-doing-one- 
woman  wliicli  -  one  -  feminine  -  doer  other  °-  one  -  now- 
come;  and:  /7iai- several -masculine -doer  several -mascu- 
line-M'7iiYe-doer  masculine-doing-several- wmii  which-sev- 
eral-masculine-doer  other-several-now-conie.  Each  word 
involves  no  less  than  four  concepts,  a  radical  concept 
(either  properly  concrete — wliite,  man,  wmnan,  come — 
or  demonstrative — tliat,  wliich)  and  three  relational  con- 
cepts, selected  from  the  categories  of  case,  number,  gen- 
der, person,  and  tense.  Logically,  only  case  ^  (the  rela- 
tion of  woman  or  me?i  to  a  following  verb,  of  which  to 
its  antecedent,  of  that  and  white  to  woman  or  men,  and 
of  which  to  come)  imperatively  demands  expression,  and 
that  only  in  connection  with  the  concepts  directly  af- 
fected (there  is,  for  instance,  no  need  to  be  informed 
that  the  whiteness  is  a  doing  or  doer's  whiteness  ^) .    The 

5  "Doer,"  not  "done  to."  This  is  a  necessarily  clumsy  tag  to 
represent  the  "nominative"  (subjective)  in  contrast  to  the  "accu- 
sative"   ( objective ) . 

6  I.e.,  not  you  or  I. 

7  By  "case"  is  here  meant  not  only  the  subjective-objective  rela- 
tion but  also  that  of  attribution. 

8  Except  in  so  far  as  Latin  uses  this  method  as  a  rather  awk- 
ward, roundabout  method  of  establishing  the  attribution  of  the 
color  to  the  particular  object  or  person.  In  effect  one  cannot 
in  Latin  directly  say  that  a  person  is  white,  merely  that  what  is 
white  is  identical  with  the  person  who  is,  acts,  or  is  acted  upon 
in  such  and  such  a  manner.  In  origin  the  feel  of  the  Latin  ilia 
alba  femina  is  really  "that-one,  the-white-one,  (namely)  the- 
woman" — three  substantive  ideas  that  are  related  to  each  other 
by  a  juxtaposition  intended  to  convey  an  identity.  English 
and  Chinese  express  the  attribution  directly  by  means  of  order. 
In  Latin  the  ilia  and  alba  may  occupy  almost  any  position  in  the 
sentence.     It   is  important  to  observe   that  the  subjective  form 


102  LANGUAGE 

other  relational  concepts  are  either  merely  parasitic 
(gender  throughout;  number  in  the  demonstrative,  the 
adjective,  the  relative,  and  the  verb)  or  irrelevant  to 
the  essential  syntactic  form  of  the  sentence  (number 
in  the  noun;  person;  tense).  An  intelligent  and  sensi- 
tive Chinaman,  accustomed  as  he  is  to  cut  to  the  very 
bone  of  linguistic  form,  might  well  say  of  the  Latin  sen- 
tence, ''How  pedantically  imaginative!"  It  must  be 
difficult  for  him,  when  first  confronted  by  the  illogical 
complexities  of  our  European  languages,  to  feel  at  home 
in  an  attitude  that  so  largely  confounds  the  subject- 
matter  of  speech  with  its  formal  pattern  or,  to  be  more 
accurate,  that  turns  certain  fundamentally  concrete  con- 
cepts to  such  attenuated  relational  uses. 

I  have  exaggerated  somewhat  the  concreteness  of  our 
subsidiary  or  rather  non-syntactical  relational  concepts 
in  order  that  the  essential  facts  might  come  out  in  bold 
relief.  It  goes  without  saying  that  a  Frenchman  has  no 
clear  sex  notion  in  his  mind  when  he  speaks  of  un  arhre 
("a-masculine  tree")  or  of  une  ponime  ("a-feminine 
apple").  Nor  have  we,  despite  the  grammarians,  a  very 
vivid  sense  of  the  present  as  contrasted  with  all  past 
and  all  future  time  when  we  say  He  comes.^  This  is 
evident  from  our  use  of  the  present  to  indicate  both 
future  time  ("He  comes  to-morrow")  and  general  ac- 
tivity unspecified  as  to  time  ("Whenever  he  comes,  I 
am  glad  to  see  him,"  where  "comes"  refers  to  past  oc- 


of  ilJa  and  oUja  does  not  truly  define  a  relation  of  these  qualifying 
concepts  to  fcmina.  Such  a  relation  might  be  formally  expressed 
via  an  attriliutive  case,  sav  the  srenitive  (tromnn  of  irhiteness). 
In  Tibetan  both  the  methods  of  order  and  of  true  case  relation 
may  be  employed:  iroman  vhife  (i.e.,  "white  woman")  or  vhite-of 
icoman  (i.e.,  "woman  of  whiteness,  woman  who  is  white,  white 
woman") . 

»  Aside,  naturally,  from  the  life  and  imminence  that  may  bo 
created  for  such  a  sentence  by  a  particular  context. 


FORM:  GRAMMATICAL  CONCEPTS  103 

eurrences  and  possible  future  ones  rather  than  to  pres- 
ent activity).  In  both  the  French  and  English  instances 
the  primary  ideas  of  sex  and  time  have  become  diluted 
by  form-analogy  and  by  extensions  into  the  relational 
sphere,  the  concepts  ostensibly  indicated  being  now  so 
vaguely  delimited  that  it  is  rather  the  tyranny  of  usage 
than  the  need  of  their  concrete  expression  that  sways  us 
in  the  selection  of  this  or  that  form.  If  the  thinning- 
out  process  continues  long  enough,  we  may  eventually 
be  left  with  a  system  of  forms  on  our  hands  from  which 
all  the  color  of  life  has  vanished  and  which  merely  per- 
sist by  inertia,  duplicating  each  other's  secondary,  syn- 
tactic functions  with  endless  prodigality.  Hence,  in 
part,  the  complex  conjugational  systems  of  so  many 
languages,  in  which  differences  of  form  are  attended  by 
no  assignable  differences  of  function.  There  must  have 
been  a  time,  for  instance,  though  it  antedates  our  earliest 
documentary  evidence,  when  the  type  of  tense  formation 
represented  by  drove  or  sank  differed  in  meaning,  in 
however  slightly  nuanced  a  degree,  from  the  type 
{hilled,  worked)  which  has  now  become  established  in 
English  as  the  prevailing  preterit  formation,  very  much 
as  we  recognize  a  valuable  distinction  at  present  between 
both  these  types  and  the  "perfect"  {has  driven,  has 
killed)  but  may  have  ceased  to  do  so  at  some  point  m 
the  future.^"  Now  form  lives  longer  than  its  own  con- 
ceptual content.  Both  are  ceaselessly  changing,  but,  on 
the  whole,  the  form  tends  to  linger  on  when  the  spirit 
has  flown  or  changed  its  being.  Irrational  form,  form 
for  form's  sake — however  we  term  this  tendency  to  hold 
on  to  formal  distinctions  once  they  have  come  to  be — is 

10  This  has  largely  happened  in  popular  French  and  German, 
where  the  difference  is  stylistic  rather  than  functional.  The 
preterits  are  more  literarj  or  formal  in  tone  than  the  perfecta. 


104  LANGUAGE 

as  natural  to  the  life  of  language  as  is  the  retention  of 
modes  of  conduct  that  have  long  outlived  the  meaning 
they  once  had. 

There  is  another  powerful  tendency  which  makes  for 
a  formal  elaboration  that  does  not  strictly  correspond 
to  clear-cut  conceptual  differences.  Tliis  is  the  tend- 
ency to  construct  schemes  of  classification  into  which 
all  the  concepts  of  language  must  be  fitted.  Once  we 
have  made  up  our  minds  that  all  things  are  either 
definitely  good  or  bad  or  definitely  black  or  white,  it 
is  difficult  to  get  into  the  frame  of  mind  that  recog- 
nizes that  any  particular  thing  may  be  both  good  and 
bad  (in  other  words,  indifferent)  or  both  black  and 
white  (in  other  words,  gray),  still  more  difficult  to 
realize  that  the  good-bad  or  black-white  categories  may 
not  apply  at  all.  Language  is  in  many  respects  as  un- 
reasonable and  stubborn  about  its  classifications  as  is 
such  a  mind.  It  must  have  its  perfectly  exclusive 
pigeon-holes  and  will  tolerate  no  flying  vagrants.  Any 
concept  that  asks  for  expression  must  submit  to  the 
classificatory  rules  of  the  game,  just  as  there  are  statisti- 
cal surveys  in  which  even  the  most  convinced  atheist 
must  perforce  be  labeled  Catholic,  Protestant,  or  Jew 
or  get  no  hearing.  In  English  we  have  made  up  our 
minds  that  all  action  must  be  conceived  of  in  reference 
to  three  standard  times.  If,  therefore,  we  desire  to  state 
a  proposition  that  is  as  true  to-morrow  as  it  was  yes- 
terday, we  have  to  pretend  that  the  present  moment  may 
be  elongated  fore  and  aft  so  as  to  take  in  all  eternity." 
In  French  we  know  once  for  all  that  an  object  is  mas- 
culine or  feminine,  whether  it  be  living  or  not;  just  as 

11  Hence,  "the  square  root  of  4  is  2,"  precisely  as  "my  uncle  is 
here  now."  There  are  many  "primitive"  languages  that  are  more 
philosophical  and  distinguish  between  a  true  "present"  and  a 
"customary"  or  "general"  tense. 


FORM:  GRAMMATICAL  CONCEPTS  105 

in  many  American  and  East  Asiatic  languages  it  must 
be  understood  to  belong  to  a  certain  form-category  (say, 
ring-round,  ball-round,  long  and  slender,  cylindrical, 
sheet-like,  in  mass  like  sugar)  before  it  can  be  enu- 
merated (e.g.,  "two  ball-class  potatoes,"  "three  sheet- 
class  carpets")  or  even  said  to  "be"  or  "be  handled  in 
a  definite  way"  (thus,  in  the  Athabaskan  languages  and 
in  Yana,  "to  carry"  or  "throw"  a  pebble  is  quite  an- 
other thing  than  to  carry  or  throw  a  log,  linguistically 
no  less  than  in  terms  of  muscular  experience).  Such 
instances  might  be  multiplied  at  will.  It  is  almost  as 
though  at  some  period  in  the  past  the  unconscious  mind 
of  the  race  had  made  a  hasty  inventory  of  experience, 
committed  itself  to  a  premature  classification  that  al- 
lowed of  no  revision,  and  saddled  the  inheritors  of  its 
language  with  a  science  that  they  no  longer  quite 
believed  in  nor  had  the  strength  to  overthrow.  Dogma, 
rigidly  prescribed  by  tradition,  stiffens  into  formalism. 
Linguistic  categories  make  up  a  system  of  surviving 
dogma — dogma  of  the  unconscious.  They  are  often  but 
half  real  as  concepts;  their  life  tends  ever  to  languish 
away  into  form  for  form's  sake. 

There  is  still  a  third  cause  for  the  rise  of  this  non- 
significant form,  or  rather  of  non-significant  differences 
of  form.  This  is  the  mechanical  operation  of  phonetic 
processes,  which  may  bring  about  formal  distinctions 
that  have  not  and  never  had  a  corresponding  functional 
distinction.  Much  of  the  irregularity  and  general  for- 
mal complexity  of  our  declensional  and  conjugational 
systems  is  due  to  this  process.  The  plural  of  hat  is  hats, 
the  plural  of  self  is  selves.  In  the  former  case  we  have 
a  true  -.s  symbolizing  plurality,  in  the  latter  a  g-sound 
coupled  with  a  change  in  the  radical  element  of  the  word 
of  /  to  V.    Here  we  have  not  a  falling  together  of  forms 


106  I.ANGUAGE 

that  originally  stood  for  fairly  distinct  concepts — as  we 
saw  was  presumably  the  case  with  such  parallel  forms 
as  drove  and  worked — but  a  merely  mechanical  mani- 
folding of  the  same  formal  element  without  a  corre- 
sponding growth  of  a  new  concept.  This  type  of  form 
development,  therefore,  while  of  the  greatest  interest 
for  the  general  history  of  language,  does  not  directly 
concern  us  now  in  our  effort  to  understand  the  nature 
of  grammatical  concepts  and  their  tendency  to  degen- 
erate into  purely  formal  counters. 

We  may  now  conveniently  revise  our  first  classifica- 
tion of  concepts  as  expressed  in  language  and  suggest 
the  following  scheme : 

I.  Basic  {Concrete)  Concepts  (such  as  objects,  actions, 
qualities)  :  normally  expressed  by  independent  words 
or  radical  elements ;  involve  no  relation  as  such  ^- 
II.  Derivational  Concepts  (less  concrete,  as  a  rule,  than  I, 
more  so  than  III)  :  normally  expressed  by  affixing 
non-radical  elements  to  radical  elements  or  by  inner 
modification  of  these;  differ  from  type  I  in  defining 
ideas  that  are  irrelevant  to  the  proposition  as  a  whole 
but  that  give  a  radical  element  a  particular  increment 
of  significance  and  that  are  thus  inherently  related  in 
a  specific  way  to  concepts  of  type  I  ^^ 

12  Except,  of  course,  the  fundamental  selection  and  contrast  nec- 
essarily implied  in  defining  one  conecpt  as  against  another. 
"Man"  and  "white"  possess  an  inherent  relation  to  "woman" 
and  "black,"  but  it  is  a  relation  of  conceptual  content  only  and 
is  of  no  direct   interest  to  grammar. 

13  Thus,  the  -er  of  farmer  may  be  defined  as  indicating  that 
particular  substantive  concept  (object  or  thinp)  that  serves  as 
the  habitual  subject  of  the  particidar  verb  to  which  it  is  affixed. 
This  relation  of  "subject"  \a  farmer  farms)  is  inliercnt  in  and 
specific  to  the  word;  it  does  not  exist  for  the  sentenc(>  as  a  wliole. 
In  the  same  way  the  -linff  of  duckling  defines  a  specific  relation 
of  attribution  that  concerns  only  the  radical  element,  not  the 
sentence. 


FORM:  GRAMMATICAL  CONCEPTS  107 

III.  Concrete  Relational   Concepts    (still   more   abstract,   yet 

not  entirely  devoid  of  a  measure  of  concreteness)  : 
normally  expressed  by  affixing  non-radical  elements  to 
radical  elements,  but  generally  at  a  greater  remove 
from  these  than  is  the  case  with  elements  of  type  II, 
or  by  inner  moditlcation  of  radical  elements;  differ 
fundamentally  from  type  II  in  indicating  or  implying 
relations  that  transcend  the  particular  word  to  which 
they  are  immediately  attached,  thus  leading  over  to 

IV.  Pure  Relational   Concepts    (purely   abstract)  :    normally 

expressed  by  affixing  non-radical  elements  to  radical 
elements  (in  which  case  these  concepts  are  frequently 
intertwmed  with  those  of  type  III)  or  by  their  inner 
modification,  by  independent  words,  or  by  position ; 
serve  to  relate  the  concrete  elements  of  the  proposition 
to  each  other,  thus  giving  it  definite  syntactic  form. 

The  nature  of  these  four  classes  of  concepts  as  regards 
their  concreteness  or  their  power  to  express  syntactic 
relations  may  be  thus  symbolized: 

Material      (      I.    Basic  Concepts 
Content      1     H-    Derivational  Concepts 

Relation     i  ^^^'    Concrete  Relational  Concepts 
IV.    Pure  Relational  Concepts 

These  schemes  must  not  be  worshipped  as  fetiches. 
In  the  actual  work  of  analysis  difficult  problems  fre- 
quently arise  and  we  may  well  be  in  doubt  as  to  how 
to  group  a  given  set  of  concepts.  This  is  particularly  apt 
to  be  the  case  in  exotic  languages,  where  we  may  be 
quite  sure  of  the  analysis  of  the  words  in  a  sentence 
and  yet  not  succeed  in  acquiring  that  inner  ''feel"  of 
its  structure  that  enables  us  to  tell  infallibly  what  is 
"material  content"  and  what  is  "relation."     Concepts 


108  LANGUAGE 

of  class  I  are  essential  to  all  speech,  also  concepts  of 
class  IV.  Concepts  II  and  III  are  both  common,  but  not 
essential;  particularly  group  III,  which  represents,  in 
effect,  a  psychological  and  formal  confusion  of  types  II 
and  IV  or  of  types  I  and  IV,  is  an  avoidable  class  of 
concepts.  Logically  there  is  an  impassable  gulf  between 
I  and  IV,  but  the  illogical,  metaphorical  genius  of 
speech  has  wilfully  spanned  the  gulf  and  set  up  a  con- 
tinuous gamut  of  concepts  and  forms  that  leads  imper- 
ceptibly from  the  crudest  of  materialities  ("house"  or 
"John  Smith")  to  the  most  subtle  of  relations.  It  is 
particularly  significant  that  the  unanalyzable  inde- 
pendent word  belongs  in  most  cases  to  either  group  I  or 
group  IV,  rather  less  commonly  to  II  or  III.  It  is 
possible  for  a  concrete  concept,  represented  by  a 
simple  word,  to  lose  its  material  significance  entirely 
and  pass  over  directly  into  the  relational  sphere 
without  at  the  same  time  losing  its  independence  as  a 
word.  This  happens,  for  instance,  in  Chinese  and  Cam- 
bodgian  when  the  verb  "give"  is  used  in  an  abstract 
sense  as  a  mere  symbol  of  the  "indirect  objective"  rela- 
tion (e.g.,  Cambodgian  "We  make  story  this  give  all 
that  person  who  have  child,"  i.e.,  "We  have  made  this 
story  for  all  those  that  have  children"). 

There  are,  of  course,  also  not  a  few  instances  of  transi- 
tions between  groups  I  and  II  and  I  and  III,  as  well 
as  of  the  less  radical  one  between  II  and  III.  To  the 
first  of  these  transitions  belongs  that  whole  class  of  ex- 
amples in  which  the  independent  word,  after  passing 
through  the  preliminary  stage  of  functioning  as  the  sec- 
ondary or  qualifying  element  in  a  compound,  ends  up 
by  being  a  derivational  affix  pure  and  simple,  yet  with- 
out losing  the  memory  of  its  former  independence.  Such 
an  element  and  concept  is  the  full  of  teaspoonfull,  which 


FORM:  GRAMMATICAL  CONCEPTS  109 

hovers  psychologically  between  the  status  of  an  inde- 
pendent, radical  concept  (compare  full)  or  of  a  sub- 
sidiary element  in  a  compound  (cf.  hrim-full)  and  that 
of  a  simple  suffix  (cf.  dutiful)  in  which  the  primary  con- 
creteness  is  no  longer  felt.  In  general,  the  more  highly 
synthetic  our  linguistic  type,  the  more  difficult  and  even 
arbitrary  it  becomes  to  distinguish  groups  I  and  II. 

Not  only  is  there  a  gradual  loss  of  the  concrete  as  we 
pass  through  from  group  I  to  group  IV,  there  is  also 
a  constant  fading  away  of  the  feeling  of  sensible  re- 
ality within  the  main  groups  of  linguistic  concepts  them- 
selves. In  many  languages  it  becomes  almost  imperative, 
therefore,  to  make  various  sub-classifications,  to  segre- 
gate, for  instance,  the  more  concrete  from  the  more  ab- 
stract concepts  of  group  II.  Yet  we  must  always  beware 
of  reading  into  such  abstracter  groups  that  purely  for- 
mal, relational  feeling  that  we  can  hardly  help  associat- 
ing with  certain  of  the  abstracter  concepts  which,  with 
us,  fall  in  group  III,  unless,  indeed,  there  is  clear  evi- 
dence to  warrant  such  a  reading  in.  An  example  or  two 
should  make  clear  these  all-important  distinctions.^*  In 
Nootka  we  have  an  unusually  large  number  of  deriva- 
tional affixes  (expressing  concepts  of  group  II).  Some 
of  these  are  quite  material  in  content  (e.g.,  "in  the 
house,"  "to  dream  of"),  others,  like  an  element  denot- 
ing plurality  and  a  diminutive  affix,  are  far  more  ab- 
stract in  content.  The  former  type  are  more  closely 
welded  v/ith  the  radical  element  than  the  latter,  which 
can  only  be  suffixed  to  formations  that  have  the  value  of 

1*  It  is  precisely  the  failure  to  feel  the  "value"  or  "tone,"  as 
distinct  from  the  outer  significance,  of  the  concept  expressed  by 
a  given  grammatical  element  that  has  so  often  led  students  to 
misunderstand  the  nature  of  languages  profoundly  alien  to  their 
own.  Not  everything  that  calls  itself  "tense"  or  "mode"  or 
"number"  or  "gender"  or  "person"  is  genuinely  comparable  to 
what  we  mean  by  these  terms  in  Latin  or  French. 


110  LANGUAGE 

complete  words.  If,  therefore,  I  wish  to  say  * '  the  small 
fires  in  the  house" — and  I  can  do  this  in  one  word — I 
must  form  the  word  "fire-in-the-house,"  to  which  ele- 
ments corresponding  to  "small,"  our  plural,  and  "the" 
are  appended.  The  element  indicating  the  definiteness 
of  reference  that  is  implied  in  our  "the"  comes  at  the 
very  end  of  the  word.  So  far,  so  good.  "  Fire-in-the- 
house-the"  is  an  intelligible  correlate  of  our  "the  house- 
fire."^^  But  is  the  Nootka  correlate  of  "the  small  fires 
in  the  house"  the  true  equivalent  of  an  English  "the 
Jiouse-firelets"?  ^'^  By  no  means.  First  of  all,  the  plural 
element  precedes  the  diminutive  in  Nootka :  ' '  fire-in-the- 
house-plural-small-the, ' '  in  other  words  ' '  the  house-fires- 
let,"  which  at  once  reveals  the  important  fact  that  the 
plural  concept  is  not  as  abstractly,  as  relationally,  felt 
as  in  English.  A  more  adequate  rendering  would  be 
"the  house-fire-several-let,"  in  which,  however,  "sev- 
eral" is  too  gross  a  word,  "-let"  too  choice  an  element 
("small"  again  is  too  gross).  In  truth  we  cannot  carry 
over  into  English  the  inherent  feeling  of  the  Nootka 
word,  which  seems  to  hover  somewhere  between  "the 
house-firelets "  and  "the  house-fire-several-small."  But 
what  more  than  anything  else  cuts  off  all  possibility  of 
comparison  between  the  English  -s  of  "house-firelets" 
and  the  "-several-small"  of  the  Nootka  word  is  this, 
that  in  Nootka  neither  the  plural  nor  the  diminutive 
affix  corresponds  or  refers  to  anything  else  in  the  sen- 
tence. In  English  "the  house-firelets  burn"  (not 
"burns"),  in  Nootka  neither  verb,  nor  adjective,  nor 

15  Suffixed  articles  occur  also  in  Danish  and  Rwedisli  and  in 
numermis  other  lanpnaj?es.  The  Nootka  element  for  "in  the 
house"  differs  from  our  "house-"  in  that  it  is  suffixed  and  cannot 
occur  as  an  independent  word ;  nor  is  it  related  to  the  Nootka 
word    for    "house." 

16  Assuming  the  existence  of  a  word  "firelet." 


FORM:  GRAMMATICAL  CONCEPTS  111 

anything  else  in  the  proposition  is  in  the  least  concerned 
with  the  plurality  or  the  diminutiveness  of  the  fire. 
Hence,  while  Nootka  recognizes  a  cleavage  between  con- 
crete and  less  concrete  concepts  within  group  II,  the  less 
concrete  do  not  transcend  the  group  and  lead  us  into 
that  abstracter  air  into  which  our  plural  -s  carries  us. 
But  at  any  rate,  the  reader  may  object,  it  is  something 
that  the  Nootka  plural  affix  is  set  apart  from  the  con- 
ereter  group  of  affixes ;  and  may  not  the  Nootka  diminu- 
tive have  a  slenderer,  a  more  elusive  content  than  our 
-let  or  -ling  or  the  German  -chen  or  -leinf  ^'^ 

Can  such  a  concept  as  that  of  plurality  ever  be  clas- 
sified with  the  more  material  concepts  of  group  II? 
Indeed  it  can  be.  In  Yana  the  third  person  of  the 
verb  makes  no  formal  distinction  between  singular  and 
plural.  Nevertheless  the  plural  concept  can  be,  and 
nearly  always  is,  expressed  by  the  suffixing  of  an  ele- 
ment (-ha-)  to  the  radical  element  of  the  verb.  ''It 
burns  in  the  east"  is  rendered  by  the  verb  ya-liau-si 
"burn-east-s."  ^^  ''They  burn  in  the  east"  is  ya-ha- 
Jiau-si.  Note  that  the  plural  affile  immediately  follows 
the  radical  element  (ya-),  disconnecting  it  from  the  local 
element  {-Tiau-).  It  needs  no  labored  argument  to  prove 
that  the  concept  of  plurality  is  here  hardly  less  concrete 
than  that  of  location  "in  the  east,"  and  that  the  Yana 
form  corresponds  in  feeling  not  so  much  to  our  "They 
burn  in  the  east"  (ardunt  oriente)  as  to  a  "Burn-several- 
east-s,  it  plurally  burns  in  the  east, ' '  an  expression  which 

17  The  Nootka  diminutive  is  doubtless  more  of  a  feeling-element, 
an  element  of  nuance,  than  our  -ling.  This  is  shown  by  the  fact 
that  it  may  be  used  with  verbs  as  well  as  with  nouns.  In  speak- 
ing to  a  child,  one  is  likely  to  add  the  diminutive  to  any  word  in 
the  sentence,  regardless  of  whether  there  is  an  inherent  diminutive 
meaning  in  the  word  or  not. 

18  -si  is  the  third  person  of  the  present  tense,  -hau-  "east"  is 
an  affix,  not  a  compounded  radical  element. 


U2  LANGUAGE 

we  cannot  adequately  assimilate  for  lack  of  the  necessary 
form-grooves  into  which  to  run  it. 

But  can  we  go  a  step  farther  and  dispose  of  the  cate- 
gory of  plurality  as  an  utterly  material  idea,  one  that 
would  make  of  "books"  a  "plural  book,"  in  which  the 
"plural,"  like  the  "white"  of  "white  book,"  falls  con- 
tentedly into  group  I?  Our  "many  books"  and  "sev- 
eral books"  are  obviously  not  cases  in  point.  Even  if 
we  could  say  "many  book"  and  "several  book"  (as  we 
can  say  "many  a  book"  and  "each  book"),  the  plural 
concept  would  still  not  emerge  as  clearly  as  it  should  for 
our  argument;  "many"  and  "several"  are  contaminated 
by  certain  notions  of  quantity  or  scale  that  are  not  essen- 
tial to  the  idea  of  plurality  itself.  We  must  turn  to 
central  and  eastern  Asia  for  the  type  of  expression  we 
are  seeking.  In  Tibetan,  for  instance,  nga-s  mi  mtJiong  ^^ 
"I-by  man  see,  by  me  a  man  is  seen,  I  see  a  man"  may 
just  as  well  be  understood  to  mean  "I  see  men,"  if  there 
happens  to  be  no  reason  to  emphasize  the  fact  of  plu- 
rality.'" If  the  fact  is  worth  expressing,  however,  I 
can  say  nga-s  mi  mams  mthong  "by  me  man  plural  see," 
where  mams  is  the  perfect  conceptual  analogue  of  -s  in 
books,  divested  of  all  relational  strings.  Rnams  follows 
its  noun  as  would  any  other  attributive  word — "man 
plural"  (whether  two  or  a  million)  like  "man  white." 
No  need  to  bother  about  his  plurality  any  more  than 
about  his  whiteness  unless  we  insist  on  the  point. 

What  is  true  of  the  idea  of  plurality  is  naturally  just 
as  true  of  a  great  many  other  concepts.  They  do  not 
necessarily  belong  where  we  who  speak  English  are  in 
the  habit  of  putting  them.     They  may  be  shifted  to- 

19  These  are  classical,  not  modern  colloquial,  forms. 

20  Just  as  in  English  "He  lias  written  books"  makes  no  com- 
mitment on  the  score  of  quantity  ("a  few,  several,  many"). 


FORM:  GRAMMATICAL  CONCEPTS  113 

wards  I  or  towards  IV,  the  two  poles  of  linguistic  ex- 
pression. Nor  dare  we  look  down  on  the  Nootka  In- 
dian and  the  Tibetan  for  their  material  attitude  towards 
a  concept  which  to  us  is  abstract  and  relational,  lest  we 
invite  the  reproaches  of  the  Frenchman  who  feels  a 
subtlety  of  relation  in  femme  blanche  and  liomme  hlanc 
that  he  misses  in  the  coarser-grained  white  woman  and 
white  man.  But  the  Bantu  Negro,  were  he  a  philoso- 
pher, might  go  further  and  find  it  strange  that  we  put 
in  group  II  a  category,  the  diminutive,  which  he  strongly 
feels  to  belong  to  group  III  and  which  he  uses,  along  with 
a  number  of  other  classificatory  concepts,^^  to  relate  his 
subjects  and  objects,  attributes  and  predicates,  as  a 
Russian  or  a  German  handles  his  genders  and,  if  pos- 
sible, with  an  even  greater  finesse. 

It  is  because  our  conceptual  scheme  is  a  sliding  scale 
rather  than  a  philosophical  analysis  of  experience 
that  we  cannot  say  in  advance  just  where  to 
put  a  given  concept.  "We  must  dispense,  in  other 
words,  with  a  well-ordered  classification  of  categories. 
"What  boots  it  to  put  tense  and  mode  here  or  number 
there  when  the  next  language  one  handles  puts 
tense  a  peg  "lower  down"  (towards  I),  mode  and 
number  a  peg  ''higher  up"  (towards  I"V)  f  Nor  is  there 
much  to  be  gained  in  a  summary  work  of  this  kind  from 
a  general  inventory  of  the  types  of  concepts  generally 
found  in  groups  II,  III,  and  I"V.  There  are  too  many 
possibilities.  It  would  be  interesting  to  show  what  are 
the  most  typical  noun-forming  and  verb-forming  ele- 
ments of  group  II ;  how  variously  nouns  may  be  classi- 
fied (by  gender ;  personal  and  non-personal ;  animate  and 
inanimate ;  by  form ;  common  and  proper)  ;  how  the  con- 

21  Such  as  person  class,  animal  class,  instrument  class,  augmen- 
tative class. 


114  LANGUAGE 

cept  of  number  is  elaborated  (singular  and  plural;  sin- 
gular, dual,  and  plural ;  singular,  dual,  trial,  and  plural ; 
single,  distributive,  and  collective)  ;  what  tense  distinc- 
tions may  be  made  in  verb  or  noun  (the  "past,"  for  in- 
stance, may  be  an  indefinite  past,  immediate,  remote, 
mythical,  completed,  prior)  ;  how  delicately  certain  lan- 
guages have  developed  the  idea  of  "aspect"--  (momen- 
taneous,  durative,  continuative,  inceptive,  cessative, 
durative-inceptive,  iterative,  momentaneous-iterative,  du- 
rative-iterative,  resultative,  and  still  others)  ;  what  mo- 
dalities may  be  recognized  (indicative,  imperative,  po- 
tential, dubitative,  optative,  negative,  and  a  host  of 
others-^);  what  distinctions  of  person  are  possible  (is 
"we,"  for  instance,  conceived  of  as  a  plurality  of  "I" 
or  is  it  as  distinct  from  "I"  as  either  is  from  "you" 
or  "he"? — both  attitudes  are  illustrated  in  language; 
moreover,  does  "we"  include  you  to  whom  I  speak  or 
not? — "inclusive"  and  "exclusive"  forms)  ;  what  may 
be  the  general  scheme  of  orientation,  the  so-called  demon- 
strative categories  ("this"  and  "that"  in  an  endless 
procession  of  nuances)  ;  -*  how  frequently  the  form  ex- 

22  A  term  borrowed  from  Slavic  grammar.  It  indicates  the 
lapse  of  action,  its  nature  from  the  standpoint  of  continuity. 
Our  "cry"  is  indefinite  as  to  aspect,  "be  crying"  is  durative,  "cry 
out"  is  momentaneous,  "burst  into  tears"  is  inceptive,  "keep  cry- 
ing" is  continuative,  "start  in  crying"  is  durative-inceptive,  "cry 
now  and  again"  is  iterative,  "cry  out  every  now  and  then"  or 
"cry  in  fits  and  starts"  is  momentaneous-iterative.  "To  put  on  a 
coat"  is  momentaneous.  "to  wear  a  coat"  is  resultative.  As  our 
examples  show,  aspect  is  expressed  in  English  by  all  kinds  of 
idiomatic  turns  rather  than  i)y  <a  consistently  worked  out  set  of 
grammatical  forms.  In  many  languages  as))ect  is  of  far  greater 
formal  significance  than  tense,  with  wliich  the  naive  student  is  apt 
to  confuse  it. 

23  By  "modalities"  I  do  not  mean  the  matter  of  fact  statement, 
say,  of  negation  or  uncertainty  as  such,  rather  their  implication 
in  terms  of  form.  There  are  languages,  for  instance,  which  have 
as  elaborate  an  apparatus  of  negative  forms  for  the  verb  aa 
Greek  has  of  the  optative  or  wish-modality. 

24  Compare  page  97. 


FORM:  GRAMMATICAL  CONCEPTS  115 

presses  the  source  or  nature  of  the  speaker's  knowledge 
(known  by  actual  experience,  by  hearsay,-^  by  infer- 
ence) ;  how  the  syntactic  relations  may  be  expressed  in 
the  noun  (subjective  and  objective;  agentive,  instrumen- 
tal, and  person  affected;-^  various  types  of  "genitive" 
and  indirect  relations)  and,  correspondingly,  in  the  verb 
(active  and  passive;  active  and  static;  transitive  and  in- 
transitive ;  impersonal,  reflexive,  reciprocal,  indefinite  as 
to  object,  and  many  other  special  limitations  on  the  start- 
ing-point and  end-point  of  the  flow  of  activity).  These 
details,  important  as  many  of  them  are  to  an  under- 
standing of  the  "inner  form"  of  language,  yield  in  gen- 
eral significance  to  the  more  radical  group-distinctions 
that  we  have  set  up.  It  is  enough  for  the  general  reader 
to  feel  that  language  struggles  towards  two  poles  of  lin- 
guistic expression — material  content  and  relation — and 
that  these  poles  tend  to  be  connected  by  a  long  series 
of  transitional  concepts. 

In  dealing  with  words  and  their  varying  forms  we 
have  had  to  anticipate  much  that  concerns  the  sentence 

2s  It  is  because  of  this  classification  of  experience  that  in  many 
languages  the  verb  forms  which  are  proper,  say,  to  a  mythical 
narration  differ  from  those  commonly  used  in  daily  inter- 
course. We  leave  these  shades  to  the  context  or  content  ourselves 
with  a  more  explicit  and  roundabout  mode  of  expression,  e.g.,  "He 
is  dead,  as  I  happen  to  know,"  "They  say  he  is  dead,"  "He  must 
be  dead  by  the  looks  of  things." 

26  We  say  "/  sleep"  and  "7  go,"  as  well  as  "/  kill  him,"  but  "he 
kills  me."  Yet  me  of  the  last  example  is  at  least  as  close  psycho- 
logically to  I  of  "I  sleep"  as  is  the  latter  to  /  of  "I  kill  him."  It 
is  only  by  form  that  we  can  classify  the  "I"  notion  of  "I  sleep" 
as  that  of  an  acting  subject.  Properly  speaking,  I  am  handled 
by  forces  beyond  my  control  when  I  sleep  just  as  truly  as  when 
some  one  is  killing  me.  Numerous  languages  differentiate  clearly 
between  active  suljject  and  static  subject  (/  rjo  and  /  kill  him  as 
distinct  from  I  sleep,  I  am  good.  I  am  killed)  or  between  transi- 
tive subject  and  intransitive  subject  (7  kill  him  as  distinct  from 
7  sleep,  I  am  good.  I  am  killedr,  I  go) .  The  intransitive  or  static 
subjects  may  or  may  not  be  identical  with  the  object  of  the 
transitive  verb. 


116  LANGUAGE 

as  a  whole.  Every  language  has  its  special  method  or 
methods  of  binding  words  into  a  larger  unity.  The  im- 
portance of  these  methods  is  apt  to  vary  with  the  com- 
plexity of  the  individual  word.  The  more  synthetic  the 
language,  in  other  words,  the  more  clearly  the  status  of 
each  word  in  the  sentence  is  indicated  by  its  own  re- 
sources, the  less  need  is  there  for  looking  beyond  the 
word  to  the  sentence  as  a  whole.  The  Latin  agit  ''  (he) 
acts"  needs  no  outside  help  to  establish  its  place  in  a 
proposition.  Whether  I  say  agit  dominus  "the  master 
acts"  or  sic  femina  agit  "thus  the  woman  acts,"  the  net 
result  as  to  the  syntactic  feel  of  the  agit  is  practically  the 
same.  It  can  only  be  a  verb,  the  predicate  of  a  proposi- 
tion, and  it  can  only  be  conceived  as  a  statement  of  activ- 
ity carried  out  by  a  person  (or  thing)  other  than  you 
or  me.  It  is  not  so  with  such  a  word  as  the  English  act. 
Act  is  a  syntactic  waif  until  we  have  defined  its  status 
in  a  proposition — one  thing  in  "they  act  abominably," 
quite  another  in  "that  was  a  kindly  act."  The  Latin 
sentence  speaks  with  the  assurance  of  its  individual  mem- 
bers, the  English  word  needs  the  prompting  of  its  fel- 
lows. Roughly  speaking,  to  be  sure.  And  yet  to  say  that 
a  sufficiently  elaborate  word-structure  compensates  for 
external  syntactic  methods  is  perilously  close  to  begging 
the  question.  The  elements  of  the  word  are  related  to 
each  other  in  a  specific  way  and  follow  each  other  in  a 
rigorously  determined  sequence.  This  is  tantamount  to 
saying  that  a  word  which  consists  of  more  than  a  radi- 
cal element  is  a  crystallization  of  a  sentence  or  of  some 
portion  of  a  sentence,  that  a  form  like  agit  is  roughly 
the  psychological  -^  equivalent  of  a  form  like  age  is  ' '  act 
he."  Breaking  down,  then,  the  wall  that  separates  word 
and  sentence,  we  may  ask:  What,  at  last  analysis,  are 
27  Ultimately,  also  historical — say,  age  to  "act  that  (one)." 


FORM:  GRAMMATICAL  CONCEPTS  117 

the  fundamental  methods  of  relating  word  to  word  and 
element  to  element,  in  short,  of  passing  from  the  isolated 
notions  symbolized  by  each  word  and  by  each  element 
to  the  unified  proposition  that  corresponds  to  a  thought  ? 
The  answer  is  simple  and  is  implied  in  the  preceding 
remarks.     The  most  fundamental  and  the  most  powerful 
of  all  relating  methods  is  the  method  of  order.     Let  us 
think  of  some  more  or  less  concrete  idea,  say  a  color, 
and  set  down  its  symbol — red;  of  another  concrete  idea, 
say  a  person  or  object,  setting  down  its  symbol — dog; 
finally,  of  a  third  concrete  idea,  say  an  action,  setting 
down  its  symbol — run.    It  is  hardly  possible  to  set  down 
these  three  symbols — red  dog  run — without  relating  them 
in  some  way,   for  example    {tlie)    red  dog  run{s) .     I 
am  far  from  wishing  to  state  that  the  proposition  has 
always  grown  up  in  this  analytic  manner,  merely  that 
the  very  process  of  juxtaposing  concept  to  concept,  sym- 
bol to  symbol,  forces  some  kind  of  relational  "feeling," 
if  nothing  else,  upon  us.     To  certain  syntactic  adhesions 
we  are  very  sensitive,  for  example,  to  the  attributive  rela- 
tion of  quality  (red  dog)  or  the  subjective  relation  {dog 
run)  or  the  objective  relation  {kill  dog),  to  others  we 
are  more   indifferent,   for   example,   to   the   attributive 
relation  of  circumstance  (to-day  red  dog  run  or  red  dog 
to-day  run  or  red  dog  run  to-day,  all  of  which  are  equiva- 
lent propositions  or  propositions  in  embryo).     Words 
and  elements,  then,  once  they  are  listed  in  a  certain  or- 
der, tend  not  only  to  establish  some  kind  of  relation 
among  themselves  but  are  attracted  to  each  other  in 
greater  or  in  less  degree.     It  is  presumably  this  very 
greater   or  less   that   ultimately  leads   to   those   firmly 
solidified  groups  of  elements    (radical  element  or  ele- 
ments plus  one  or  more  grammatical  elements)  that  we 
have  studied  as  complex  words.     They  are  in  all  like- 


118  LANGUAGE 

lihood  nothing  but  sequences  that  have  shrunk  together 
and  away  from  other  sequences  or  isolated  elements  in 
the  flow  of  speech.  While  they  are  fully  alive,  in  other 
words,  while  they  are  functional  at  every  point,  they 
can  keep  themselves  at  a  psychological  distance  from 
their  neighbors.  As  they  gradually  lose  much  of  their 
life,  they  fall  back  into  the  embrace  of  the  sentence  as  a 
whole  and  the  sequence  of  independent  words  regains 
the  importance  it  had  in  part  transferred  to  the  crystal- 
lized groups  of  elements.  Speech  is  thus  constantly 
tightening  and  loosening  its  sequences.  In  its  highly 
integrated  forms  (Latin,  Eskimo)  the  ''energy"  of 
sequence  is  largely  locked  up  in  complex  word  forma- 
tions, it  becomes  transformed  into  a  kind  of  potential 
energy  that  may  not  be  released  for  millennia.  In  its 
more  analytic  forms  (Chinese,  English)  this  energy  is 
mobile,  ready  to  hand  for  such  service  as  we  demand 
of  it. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  stress  has  frequently 
played  a  controlling  influence  in  the  formation  of  ele- 
ment-groups or  complex  words  out  of  certain  sequences 
in  the  sentence.  Such  an  English  word  as  ivitlistand 
is  merely  an  old  sequence  until  stand,  i.e.,  "  against  ^^ 
stand, ' '  in  which  the  unstressed  adverb  was  permanently 
drawn  to  the  following  verb  and  lost  its  independence  as 
a  significant  element.  In  the  same  way  French  futures 
of  the  type  irai  "  (1)  shall  go"  are  but  the  resultants  of 
a  coalescence  of  oriijinally  independent  words:  ?r -^  a'i 
"to-go  I-have,"  under  the  influence  of  a  unifying  accent. 
But  stress  has  done  more  than  articulate  or  unify  se- 
quences that  in  their  own  right  imply  a  syntactic  rela- 

28  For  with  in  the  sense  of  "against,"  compare  German  toidel 
"against." 

-'■>  Cf.  Latin  ire  "to  go";  also  our  English  idiom  "I  have  to  go," 
i.e.,   "must  go." 


FORM:  GRAMMATICAL  CONCEPTS  119 

tion.  Stress  is  the  most  natural  means  at  our  disposal 
to  emphasize  a  linguistic  contrast,  to  indicate  the  major 
element  in  a  sequence.  Hence  we  need  not  be  sur- 
prised to  find  that  accent  too,  no  less  than  sequence,  may 
serve  as  the  unaided  symbol  of  certain  relations.  Such 
a  contrast  as  that  of  go  between  ("one  who  goes  be- 
tween") and  to  go  between  may  be  of  quite  secondary 
origin  in  English,  but  there  is  every  reason  to  believe 
that  analogous  distinctions  have  prevailed  at  all  times 
in  linguistic  history.  A  sequence  like  see  man  might 
imply  some  type  of  relation  in  which  see  qualifies  the 
following  w^ord,  hence  "a  seeing  man"  or  "a  seen  (or 
visible)  man,"  or  is  its  predication,  hence  "the  man 
sees"  or  "the  man  is  seen,"  while  a  sequence  like  see 
man  might  indicate  that  the  accented  word  in  some  way 
limits  the  application  of  the  first,  say  as  direct  object, 
hence  "to  see  a  man"  or  "(he)  sees  the  man."  Such 
alternations  of  relation,  as  symbolized  by  varying 
stresses,  are  important  and  frequent  in  a  number  of 
languages.^" 

It  is  a  somewhat  venturesome  and  yet  not  an  altogether 
unreasonable  speculation  that  sees  in  word  order  and 
stress  the  primary  methods  for  the  expression  of  all  syn- 
tactic relations  and  looks  upon  the  present  relational 
value  of  specific  words  and  elements  as  but  a  secondary 
condition  due  to  a  transfer  of  values.  Thus,  we  may 
surmise  that  the  Latin  -m  of  words  like  feminam, 
dominum,  and  civem  did  not  originally  ^^  denote  that 
"woman,"  "master,"  and  "citizen"  were  objectively 
related  to  the  verb  of  the  proposition  but  indicated  some- 


30  In  Chinese  no  less  than  in  English. 

31  By  "originally"  1  mean,  of  course,  some  time  antedating  the 
earliest  period  of  the  Indo-European  languages  that  we  can  get 
at  by  comparative  evidence. 


120  LANGUAGE 

thing  far  more  concrete,^-  that  the  objective  relation  was 
merely  implied  by  the  position  or  accent  of  the  word 
(radical  element)  immediately  precediaig  the  -m,  and 
that  gradually,  as  its  more  concrete  significance  faded 
away,  it  took  over  a  syntactic  function  that  did  not 
originally  be'ong  to  it.  This  sort  of  evolution  by  trans- 
fer is  traceable  in  many  instances.  Thus,  the  of  in  an 
English  phrase  like  "the  law  of  the  land"  is  now  as 
colorless  in  content,  as  purely  a  relational  indicator  as 
the  ''genitive"  suffix  -is  in  the  Latin  lex  urhis  "the  law 
of  the  city. ' '  We  know,  however,  that  it  was  originally 
an  adverb  of  considerable  concreteness  of  meaning,^^ 
"away,  moving  from,"  and  that  the  syntactic  relation 
was  originally  expressed  by  the  case  form  ^*  of  the  sec- 
ond noun.  As  the  case  form  lost  its  vitality,  the  adverb 
took  over  its  function.  If  we  are  actually  justified  in 
assuming  that  the  expression  of  all  syntactic  relations 
is  ultimately  traceable  to  these  two  unavoidable,  dynamic 
features  of  speech — sequence  and  stress  ^^ — an  interest- 
ing thesis  results: — All  of  the  actual  content  of  speech, 
its  clusters  of  vocalic  and  consonantal  sounds,  is  in 
origin  limited  to  the  concrete;  relations  were  originally 
not  expressed  in  outward  form  but  were  merely  implied 
and  articulated  with  the  help  of  order  and  rhj'-thm.  In 
other  words,  relations  were  intuitively  felt  and  could 
only  "leak  out"  with  the  help  of  dynamic  factors  that 
themselves  move  on  an  intuitional  plane. 

There  is  a  special  method  for  the  expression  of  rela- 
tions that  has  been  so  often  evolved  in  the  history  of 
language  that  we  must  glance  at  it  for  a  moment.  This 
is  the  method  of  "concord"  or  of  like  signaling.     It  is 

32  Perhaps  it  was  a  noun-classifying  element  of  some  sort. 

33  Compare  its  close  historical  parallel  off. 

34  "At)lative"  at  last  analysis. 

35  Very  likely  jjitch  should  be  understood  along  with  stress. 


FORM:  GRAMMATICAL  CONCEPTS  121 

based  on  the  same  principle  as  the  password  or  label. 
All  persons  or  objects  that  answer  to  the  same  counter- 
sign or  that  bear  the  same  imprint  are  thereby  stamped 
as  somehow  related.  It  makes  little  difference,  once  they 
are  so  stamped,  where  they  are  to  be  found  or  how 
they  behave  themselves.  They  are  known  to  belong  to- 
gether. We  are  familiar  with  the  principle  of  concord 
in  Latin  and  Greek.  Many  of  us  have  been  struck  by 
such  relentless  rhymes  as  vidi  ilium  honum  dominum 
"I  saw  that  good  master"  or  quarum  dearum  saevarum 
"of  which  stern  goddesses."  Not  that  sound-echo, 
whether  in  the  form  of  rhyme  or  of  alliteration  ^'^  is  nec- 
essary to  concord,  though  in  its  most  typical  and  orig- 
inal forms  concord  is  nearly  always  accompanied  by 
sound  repetition.  The  essence  of  the  principle  is  sim- 
ply this,  that  words  (elements)  that  belong  together, 
particularly  if  they  are  syntactic  equivalents  or  are  re- 
lated in  like  fashion  to  another  word  or  element,  are 
outwardly  marked  by  the  same  or  functionally  equiva- 
lent affixes.  The  application  of  the  principle  varies 
considerably  according  to  the  genius  of  the  particular 
language.  In  Latin  and  Greek,  for  instance,  there  is 
concord  between  noun  and  qualifying  word  (adjective 
or  demonstrative)  as  regards  gender,  number,  and  case, 
between  verb  and  subject  only  as  regards  number,  and 
no  concord  between  verb  and  object. 

In  Chinook  there  is  a  more  far-reaching  concord  be- 
tween noun,  whether  subject  or  object,  and  verb.  Every 
noun  is  classified  according  to  five  categories — masculine, 
feminine,  neuter,^^  dual,  and  plural.     ' '  Woman ' '  is  f em- 

36  As  in  Bantu  or  Chinook. 

37  Perhaps  better  "general."  The  Chinook  "neuter"  may  refer 
to  persons  as  well  as  things  and  may  also  be  used  as  a  plural. 
"Masculine"  and  "feminine,"  as  in  German  and  French,  include 
a  great  number  of  inanimate  nouns. 


122  LANGUAGE 

inine,  "sand"  is  neuter,  "table"  is  masculine.  If, 
therefore,  I  wish  to  say  "The  woman  put  the  sand  on 
the  table,"  I  must  place  in  the  verb  certain  class  or 
gender  prefixes  that  accord  with  corresponding  noun  pre- 
fixes. The  sentence  reads  then,  "The  (fern.) -woman  she 
(fern.) -it  (neut.)-it  (masc.) -on-put  the  (neut.)-sand  the 
(masc.) -table."  If  "sand"  is  qualified  as  "much"  and 
"table"  as  "large,"  these  new  ideas  are  expressed  as 
abstract  nouns,  each  with  its  inherent  class-prefix 
("much"  is  neuter  or  feminine,  "large"  is  masculine) 
and  with  a  possessive  prefix  referring  to  the  qualified 
noun.  Adjective  thus  calls  to  noun,  noun  to  verb. 
"The  woman  put  much  sand  on  the  large  table,"  there- 
fore, takes  the  form:  "The  (fem.) -woman  she  (fem.)-it 
(neut.)-it  (masc.) -on-put  the  (fem.) -thereof  (neut.)- 
quantity  the  (neut.)-sand  the  (masc.) -thereof  (masc.)- 
largeness  the  (masc.) -table."  The  classification  of  "ta- 
ble" as  masculine  is  thus  three  times  insisted  on — in  the 
noun,  in  the  adjective,  and  in  the  verb.  In  the  Bantu 
languages,^^  the  principle  of  concord  works  very  much 
as  in  Chinook.  In  them  also  nouns  are  classified  into 
a  number  of  categories  and  are  brought  into  relation 
with  adjectives,  demonstratives,  relative  pronouns,  and 
verbs  by  means  of  prefixed  elements  that  call  off  the  class 
and  make  up  a  complex  system  of  concordances.  In  such 
a  sentence  as  "That  fierce  lion  who  came  here  is  dead," 
the  class  of  "lion,"  which  we  may  call  the  animal  class, 
would  be  referred  to  by  concording  prefixes  no  less  than 
six  times, — with  the  demonstrative  ("that"),  the  quali- 
fying adjective,  the  noun  itself,  the  relative  pronoun, 

38  Spoken  in  the  greater  part  of  the  southern  half  of  Africa. 
Chinook  is  spoken  in  a  number  of  diah^cts  in  the  lower  Columbia 
River  valley.  It  is  impressive  to  observe  how  the  human  mind 
has  arrived  at  the  same  form  of  expression  in  two  such  histori- 
cally unconnected  regions. 


FORM:  GRAMMATICAL  CONCEPTS  123 

the  subjective  prefix  to  the  verb  of  the  relative  clause, 
and  the  subjective  prefix  to  the  verb  of  the  main  clause 
("is  dead").  We  recognize  in  this  insistence  on  exter- 
nal clarity  of  reference  the  same  spirit  as  moves  in  the 
more  familiar  ilium  bonum  dominum. 

Psychologically  the  methods  of  sequence  and  accent 
lie  at  the  opposite  pole  to  that  of  concord.  Where  they 
are  all  for  implication,  for  subtlety  of  feeling,  concord 
is  impatient  of  the  least  ambiguity  but  must  have  its 
well-certificated  tags  at  every  turn.  Concord  tends  to 
dispense  with  order.  In  Latin  and  Chinook  the  inde- 
pendent words  are  free  in  position,  less  so  in  Bantu. 
In  both  Chinook  and  Bantu,  however,  the  methods  of 
concord  and  order  are  equallj^  important  for  the  differ- 
entiation of  subject  and  object,  as  the  classifying  verb 
prefixes  refer  to  subject,  object,  or  indirect  object  ac- 
cording to  the  relative  position  they  occupy.  These  ex- 
amples again  bring  home  to  us  the  significant  fact  that 
at  some  point  or  other  order  asserts  itself  in  every  lan- 
guage as  the  most  fundamental  of  relating  principles. 

The  observant  reader  has  probably  been  surprised  that 
all  this  time  we  have  had  so  little  to  say  of  the  time- 
honored  ''parts  of  speech."  The  reason  for  this  is  not 
far  to  seek.  Our  conventional  classification  of  words 
into  parts  of  speech  is  only  a  vague,  wavering  approxi- 
mation to  a  consistently  worked  out  inventory  of  experi- 
ence. We  imagine,  to  begin  Avith,  that  all  "verbs"  are 
inherently  concerned  with  action  as  such,  that  a  "noun" 
is  the  name  of  some  definite  object  or  personality  that 
can  be  pictured  by  the  mind,  that  all  qualities  are  neces- 
sarily expressed  by  a  definite  group  of  words  to  which 
we  may  appropriately  apply  the  term  "adjective."  As 
soon  as  we  test  our  vocabulary,  we  discover  that  the 
parts  of  speech  are  far  from  corresponding  to  so  sim- 


124     '  LANGUAGE 

pie  an  analysis  of  reality.  We  say  *'it  is  red"  and 
define  "red"  as  a  quality- word  or  adjective.  We  should 
consider  it  strange  to  think  of  an  equivalent  of  ''is  red" 
in  which  the  whole  predication  (adjective  and  verb  of 
being)  is  conceived  of  as  a  verb  in  precisely  the  same 
way  in  which  we  think  of  "extends"  or  "lies"  or 
"sleeps"  as  a  verb.  Yet  as  soon  as  we  give  the  "dura- 
tive"  notion  of  being  red  an  inceptive  or  transitional 
turn,  we  can  avoid  the  parallel  form  "it  becomes  red, 
it  turns  red ' '  and  say  ' '  it  reddens. ' '  No  one  denies  that 
"reddens"  is  as  good  a  verb  as  "sleeps"  or  even 
"walks."  Yet  "it  is  red"  is  related  to  "it  reddens" 
very  much  as  is  " he  stands "  to  "he  stands  up "  or  "he 
rises."  It  is  merely  a  matter  of  English  or  of  general 
Indo-European  idiom  that  we  cannot  say  "it  reds"  in 
the  sense  of  "it  is  red."  There  are  hundreds  of  lan- 
guages that  can.  Indeed  there  are  many  that  can  ex- 
press what  we  should  call  an  adjective  only  by  making 
a  participle  out  of  a  verb.  "Red"  in  such  languages  is 
merely  a  derivative  "being  red,"  as  our  "sleeping"  or 
"walking"  are  derivatives  of  primary  verbs. 

Just  as  we  can  verbify  the  idea  of  a  quality  in  such 
eases  as  "reddens,"  so  we  can  represent  a  quality  or  an 
action  to  ourselves  as  a  thing.  We  speak  of  "the  height 
of  a  building"  or  "the  fall  of  an  apple"  quite  as  though 
these  ideas  were  parallel  to  "the  roof  of  a  building"  or 
"the  skin  of  an  apple,"  forgetting  that  the  nouns 
(lieigJity  fall)  have  not  ceased  to  indicate  a  quality  and 
an  act  when  we  have  made  them  speak  with  the  accent 
of  mere  objects.  And  just  as  there  are  languages  that 
make  verbs  of  the  great  mass  of  adjectives,  so  there  are 
others  that  make  nouns  of  them.  In  Chinook,  as  we 
have  seen,  "the  big  table"  is  "the-table  its-bigness";  in 
Tibetan  the  same  idea  may  be  expressed  by  "the  table 


FORM:  GRAMMATICAL  CONCEPTS  125 

of  bigness,"  very  much  as  we  may  say  "a  man  of 
wealth"  instead  of  "a  rich  man." 

But  are  there  not  certain  ideas  that  it  is  impossible 
to  render  except  by  way  of  such  and  such  parts  of 
speech ?  What  can  be  done  with  the  " to "  of  "he  came 
to  the  house"!  Well,  we  can  say  "he  reached  the 
house"  and  dodge  the  preposition  altogether,  giving 
the  verb  a  nuance  that  absorbs  the  idea  of  local 
relation  carried  by  the  "to."  But  let  us  insist  on 
giving  independence  to  this  idea  of  local  relation. 
Must  we  not  then  hold  to  the  preposition?  No,  we  can 
make  a  noun  of  it.  We  can  say  something  like  "he 
reached  the  proximity  of  the  house"  or  "he  reached  the 
house-locality."  Instead  of  saying  "he  looked  into  the 
glass"  we  may  say  "he  scrutinized  the  glass-interior." 
Such  expressions  are  stilted  in  English  because  they  do 
not  easily  fit  into  our  formal  grooves,  but  in  language 
after  language  we  find  that  local  relations  are  expressed 
in  just  this  way.  The  local  relation  is  nominalized. 
And  so  wx  might  go  on  examining  the  various  parts 
of  speech  and  showing  how  they  not  merely  grade  into 
each  other  but  are  to  an  astonishing  degree  actually  con- 
vertible into  each  other.  The  upshot  of  such  an  exami- 
nation would  be  to  feel  convinced  that  the  "part  of 
speech"  reflects  not  so  much  our  intuitive  analysis  of 
reality  as  our  ability  to  compose  that  reality  into  a 
variety  of  formal  patterns.  A  part  of  speech  outside  of 
the  limitations  of  syntactic  form  is  but  a  will  o'  the  wisp. 
For  this  reason  no  logical  scheme  of  the  parts  of  speech 
— their  number,  nature,  and  necessary  confines — is  of  the 
slightest  interest  to  the  linguist.  Each  language  has  its 
own  scheme.  Everything  depends  on  the  formal  de- 
marcations which  it  recognizes. 

Yet  we  must  not  be  too  destructive.     It  is  well  to  re- 


126  LANGUAGE 

member  that  speech  consists  of  a  series  of  propositions. 
There  must  be  something  to  talk  about  and  something 
must  be  said  about  this  subject  of  discourse  once  it  is 
selected.  This  distinction  is  of  such  fundamental  im- 
portance that  the  vast  majority  of  languages  have  em- 
phasized it  by  creating  some  sort  of  formal  barrier 
between  the  two  terms  of  the  proposition.  The  subject 
of  discourse  is  a  noun.  As  the  most  common  subject  of 
diseour.se  is  either  a  person  or  a  thing,  the  noun  clusters 
about  concrete  concepts  of  that  order.  As  the  thing 
predicated  of  a  subject  is  generally  an  activity  in  the 
widest  sense  of  the  word,  a  passage  from  one  moment  of 
existence  to  another,  the  form  which  has  been  set  aside 
for  the  business  of  predicating,  in  other  words,  the  verb, 
clusters  about  concepts  of  activit}^  No  language  wholly 
fails  to  distinguish  noun  and  verb,  though  in  particular 
cases  the  nature  of  the  distinction  may  be  an  elusive 
one.  It  is  different  with  the  other  parts  of  speech.  Not 
one  of  them  is  imperatively  required  for  the  life  of 
language.^^ 

39  In  Yana  the  noun  and  the  verb  are  well  distinct,  though  there 
are  certain  features  that  they  hold  in  common  which  tend  to  draw 
them  nearer  to  each  other  than  we  feel  to  be  possible.  But  there 
are,  strictly  speaking,  no  other  parts  of  speech.  The  adjective 
is  a  verb.  So  are  the  numeral,  the  interrogative  pronoun  (e.g., 
"to  be  what?"),  and  certain  "conjunctions"  and  adverbs  (e.g.,  "to 
be  and"  and  "to  be  not";  one  says  "and-past-I  go,"  i.e.,  "and  I 
went").  Adverbs  and  prepositions  are  either  nouns  or  merely 
derivative  affixes  in  the  verb. 


VI 

TYPES  OP  LINGUISTIC  STRUCTURE 

So  far,  in  dealing  with  linguistic  form,  we  have  been 
concerned  only  with  single  words  and  with  the  relations 
of  words  in  sentences.  We  have  not  envisaged  whole 
languages  as  conforming  to  this  or  that  general  type. 
Incidentally  we  have  observed  that  one  language  runs 
to  tight-knit  synthesis  where  another  contents  itself  with 
a  more  analytic,  piece-meal  handling  of  its  elements,  or 
that  in  one  language  syntactic  relations  appear  pure 
which  in  another  are  combined  with  certain  other  no- 
tions that  have  something  concrete  about  them,  however 
abstract  they  may  be  felt  to  be  in  practice.  In  this 
way  we  may  have  obtained  some  inkling  of  what  is 
meant  when  we  speak  of  the  general  form  of  a  language. 
For  it  must  be  obvious  to  any  one  v/ho  has  thought 
about  the  question  at  all  or  who  has  felt  something  of 
the  spirit  of  a  foreign  language  that  there  is  such  a 
thing  as  a  basic  plan,  a  certain  cut,  to  each  language. 
This  type  or  plan  or  structural  "genius"  of  the  lan- 
guage is  something  much  more  fundamental,  much  more 
pervasive,  than  any  single  feature  of  it  that  we  can 
mention,  nor  can  we  gain  an  adequate  idea  of  its  na- 
ture by  a  mere  recital  of  the  sundry  facts  that  make  up 
the  grammar  of  the  language.  When  we  pass  from 
Latin  to  Russian,  we  feel  that  it  is  approximately  the 
same  horizon  that  bounds  our  view,  even  though  the  near, 
familiar  landmarks  have  changed.  When  we  come  to 
English,  we  seem  to  notice  that  the  hills  have  dipped 

127 


128  LANGUAGE 

down  a  little,  yet  we  recognize  the  general  lay  of  the 
land.  And  when  we  have  arrived  at  Chinese,  it  is  an 
utterly  different  sky  that  is  looking  down  upon  us.  We 
can  translate  these  metaphors  and  say  that  all  languages 
differ  from  one  another  but  that  certain  ones  differ  far 
more  than  others.  This  is  tantamount  to  saying  that 
it  is  possible  to  group  them  into  morphological  types. 

Strictly  speaking,  we  know  in  advance  that  it  is 
impossible  to  set  up  a  limited  number  of  types  that 
would  do  full  justice  to  the  peculiarities  of  the  thou- 
sands of  languages  and  dialects  spoken  on  the  surface 
of  the  earth.  Like  all  human  institutions,  speech 
is  too  variable  and  too  elusive  to  be  quite  safely  ticketed. 
Even  if  we  operate  with  a  minutely  subdivided  scale 
of  types,  we  may  be  quite  certain  that  many  of  our 
languages  will  need  trimming  before  they  fit.  To  get 
them  into  the  scheme  at  all  it  will  be  necessary  to  over- 
estimate the  significance  of  this  or  that  feature  or  to 
ignore,  for  the  time  being,  certain  contradictions  in  their 
mechanism.  Does  the  difficulty  of  classification  prove 
the  uselessness  of  the  task?  I  do  not  think  so.  It 
would  be  too  easy  to  relieve  ourselves  of  the  burden  of 
constructive  thinking  and  to  take  the  standpoint  that 
each  language  has  its  unique  history,  therefore  its  unique 
structure.  Such  a  standpoint  expresses  only  a  half 
truth.  Just  as  similar  social,  economic,  and  religious 
institutions  have  grown  up  in  different  parts  of  the 
world  from  distinct  historical  antecedents,  so  also  lan- 
guages, traveling  along  different  roads,  have  tended  to 
converge  toward  similar  forms.  Moreover,  the  historical 
study  of  language  has  proven  to  us  beyond  all  doubt 
that  a  language  changes  not  only  gradually  but 
consistently,  that  it  moves  unconsciously  from  one  type 
towards  another,  and  that  analogous  trends  are  observ- 


TYPES  OF  LINGUISTIC  STRUCTURE  129 

able  in  remote  quarters  of  the  globe.  From  this  it  fol- 
lows that  broadly  similar  morphologies  must  have  been 
reached  by  unrelated  languages,  independently  and  fre- 
quently. In  assuming  the  existence  of  comparable  types, 
therefore,  we  are  not  gainsaying  the  individuality  of  all 
historical  processes;  we  are  merely  affirming  that  back 
of  the  face  of  history  are  powerful  drifts  that  move 
language,  like  other  social  products,  to  balanced  pat- 
terns, in  other  words,  to  types.  As  linguists  we  shall 
be  content  to  realize  that  there  are  these  types  and  that 
certain  processes  in  the  life  of  language  tend  to  modify 
them.  Why  similar  types  should  be  formed,  just  what 
is  the  nature  of  the  forces  that  make  them  and  dissolve 
them — these  questions  are  more  easily  asked  than  an- 
swered. Perhaps  the  psychologists  of  the  future  will  be 
able  to  give  us  the  ultimate  reasons  for  the  formation  of 
linguistic  types. 

When  it  comes  to  the  actual  task  of  classification,  we 
find  that  we  have  no  easy  road  to  travel.  Various  classi- 
fications have  been  suggested,  and  they  all  contain  ele- 
ments of  value.  Yet  none  proves  satisfactory.  They 
do  not  so  much  enfold  the  known  languages  in  their 
embrace  as  force  them  down  into  narrow,  straight-backed 
seats.  The  difficulties  have  been  of  various  kinds.  First 
and  foremost,  it  has  been  difficult  to  choose  a  point  of 
view.  On  what  basis  shall  we  classify?  A  language 
shows  us  so  many  facets  that  we  may  well  be  puzzled. 
And  is  one  point  of  view  sufficient?  Secondly,  it  is 
dangerous  to  generalize  from  a  small  number  of  se- 
lected languages.  To  take,  as  the  sum  total  of  our  ma- 
terial, Latin,  Arabic,  Turkish,  Chinese,  and  perhaps  Es- 
kimo or  Sioux  as  an  afterthought,  is  to  court  disaster. 
We  have  no  right  to  assume  that  a  sprinkling  of  exotic 
types  will  do  to  supplement  the  few  languages  nearer 


130  LANGUAGE 

home  that  we  are  more  immediately  interested  in, 
Thirdly,  the  strong  craving  for  a  simple  formula^  has 
been  the  undoing  of  linguists.  There  is  something  irre- 
sistible about  a  method  of  classification  that  starts  with 
two  poles,  exemplified,  say,  by  Cliinese  and  Latin,  clus- 
ters what  it  conveniently  can  about  these  poles,  and 
throws  everything  else  into  a  "transitional  type." 
Hence  has  arisen  the  still  popular  classification  of  lan- 
guages into  an  "isolating"  group,  an  "agglutinative" 
group,  and  an  "inflective"  group.  Sometimes  the  lan- 
guages of  the  American  Indians  are  made  to  straggle 
along  as  an  uncomfortable  "polysynthetic"  rear-guard 
to  the  agglutinative  languages.  There  is  justification 
for  the  use  of  all  of  these  terms,  though  not  perhaps 
in  quite  the  spirit  in  which  they  are  commonly  employed. 
In  any  case  it  is  very  difficult  to  assign  all  known 
languages  to  one  or  other  of  these  groups,  the  more  so 
as  they  are  not  mutually  exclusive.  A  language  may  be 
both  agglutinative  and  inflective,  or  inflective  and  poly- 
synthetic, or  even  polysynthetic  and  isolating,  as  we 
shall  see  a  little  later  on. 

There  is  a  fourth  reason  why  the  classification  of  lan- 
guages has  generally  proved  a  fruitless  undertaking. 
It  is  probably  the  most  powerful  deterrent  of  all 
to  clear  thinking.  This  is  the  evolutionary  prejudice 
which  instilled  itself  into  the  social  sciences  towards 
the  middle  of  the  last  century  and  which  is  only  now 
beginning  to  abate  its  tyrannical  hold  on  our  mind.  In- 
termingled with  this  scientific  prejudice  and  largely  an- 
ticipating it  was  another,  a  more  human  one.  The  vast 
majority  of  linguistic  theorists  themselves  spoke  lan- 
guages of  a  certain  type,  of  which  the  most  fully  de- 
veloped varieties  were  the  Latin  and  Greek  that  they 

1  If  possible,  a  triune  formula. 


TYPES  OF  LINGUISTIC  STRUCTURE  131 

had  learned  in  their  childhood.  It  was  not  difficult 
for  them  to  be  persuaded  that  these  familiar  languages 
represented  the  "highest"  development  that  speech 
had  yet  attained  and  that  all  other  types  were 
but  steps  on  the  way  to  this  beloved  "inflective"  type. 
Whatever  conformed  to  the  pattern  of  Sanskrit  and 
Greek  and  Latin  and  German  was  accepted  as  expressive 
of  the  "highest,"  whatever  departed  from  it  was 
frowned  upon  as  a  shortcoming  or  was  at  best  an  inter- 
esting aberration.-  Now  any  classification  that  starts 
with  preconceived  values  or  that  works  up  to  senti- 
mental satisfactions  is  self-condemned  as  unscientific. 
A  linguist  that  insists  on  talking  about  the  Latin  type 
of  morphology  as  though  it  were  necessarily  the  high- 
water  mark  of  linguistic  development  is  like  the  zoolo- 
gist that  sees  in  the  organic  world  a  huge  conspiracy  to 
evolve  the  race-horse  or  the  Jersey  cow.  Language  in 
its  fundamental  forms  is  the  symbolic  expression  of 
human  intuitions.  These  may  shape  themselves  in  a 
hundred  ways,  regardless  of  the  material  advancement 
or  backwardness  of  the  people  that  handle  the  forms,  of 
which,  it  need  hardly  be  said,  they  are  in  the  main  un- 
conscious. If,  therefore,  we  wish  to  understand  lan- 
guage in  its  true  inwardness  we  must  disabuse  our 
minds  of  preferred  "values"^  and  accustom  ourselves 

2  One  celebrated  American  writer  on  culture  and  language  de- 
livered himself  of  the  dictum  that,  estimable  as  the  speakers  of 
agglutinative  languages  might  be,  it  was  nevertheless  a  crime  for 
an  inflecting  woman  to  marry  an  agglutinating  man.  Tremendous 
spiritual  values  were  evidently  at  stake.  Champions  of  the  "inflec- 
tive" languages  are  wont  to  glory  in  the  very  irrationalities  of 
Latin  and  Greek,  except  when  it  suits  them  to  emphasize  thoir  pro- 
foundly "logical"  character.  Yet  the  sober  logic  of  Turkish  or 
Chinese  leaves  them  cold.  The  glorious  irrationalities  and  formal 
complexities  of  many  "savaee"  languages  they  have  no  stomach 
for.     Sentimentalists  are  difficult  people. 

3 1  have  in  mind  valuations  of  form  as  such.     Whether  or  not 


132  LANGUAGE 

to  look  upon  English  and  Hottentot  with  the  same  cool, 
yet  interested,  detachment. 

We  come  back  to  our  first  difficulty.  What  point  of 
view  shall  we  adopt  for  our  classification?  After  all 
that  we  have  said  about  grammatical  form  in  the  pre- 
ceding chapter,  it  is  clear  that  we  cannot  now  make 
the  distinction  between  form  languages  and  formless 
languages  that  used  to  appeal  to  some  of  the  older 
writers.  Every  language  can  and  must  express  the  fun- 
damental syntactic  relations  even  though  there  is  not 
a  single  affix  to  be  found  in  its  vocabulary.  We  con- 
clude that  every  language  is  a  form  language.  Aside 
from  the  expression  of  pure  relation  a  language  may,  of 
course,  be  ' '  formless ' ' — formless,  that  is,  in  the  mechani- 
cal and  rather  superficial  sense  that  it  is  not  encumbered 
by  the  use  of  non-radical  elements.  The  attempt  has 
sometimes  been  made  to  formulate  a  distinction  on  the 
basis  of  ''inner  form."  Chinese,  for  instance,  has  no 
formal  elements  pure  and  simple,  no  "outer  form,"  but 
it  evidences  a  keen  sense  of  relations,  of  the  difference 
between  subject  and  object,  attribute  and  predicate,  and 
so  on.  In  other  words,  it  has  an  "inner  form"  in  the 
same  sense  in  which  Latin  possesses  it,  though  it  is  out- 
wardly "formless"  where  Latin  is  outwardly  "formal." 
On  the  other  hand,  there  are  supposed  to  be  languages  * 
which  have  no  true  grasp  of  the  fundamental  relations 
but  content  themselves  with  the  more  or  less  minute 


a  language  has  a  large  and  useful  vocabulary  is  another  matter. 
The  actual  size  of  a  vocabulary  at  a  given  time  is  not  a  thing 
of  real  interest  to  the  linguist,  as  all  languages  have  the  resources 
at  their  disposal  for  the  creation  of  new  words,  should  need  for 
them  arise.  Furthermore,  we  are  not  in  the  least  concerned  with 
whether  or  not  a  language  is  of  great  practical  value  or  is  the 
medium  of  a  great  culture.  All  these  considerations,  important 
from  other  standpoints,  have  nothing  to  do  with  form  value. 
4  E.g.,  Malay,  Polynesian. 


TYPES  OF  LINGUISTIC  STRUCTURE  133 

expression  of  material  ideas,  sometimes  with  an  exu- 
berant display  of  "outer  form,"  leaving  the  pure  rela- 
tions to  be  merely  inferred  from  the  context.  I  am 
strongly  inclined  to  believe  that  this  supposed  "inner 
formlessness"  of  certain  languages  is  an  illusion.  It 
may  well  be  that  in  these  languages  the  relations  are 
not  expressed  in  as  immaterial  a  way  as  in  Chinese  or 
even  as  in  Latin,^  or  that  the  principle  of  order  is  sub- 
ject to  greater  fluctuations  than  in  Chinese,  or  that  a 
tendency  to  complex  derivations  relieves  the  language 
of  the  necessity  of  expressing  certain  relations  as  ex- 
plicitly as  a  more  analytic  language  would  have  them 
expressed. **  All  this  does  not  mean  that  the  languages 
in  question  have  not  a  true  feeling  for  the  fundamental 
relations.  We  shall  therefore  not  be  able  to  use  the  no- 
tion of  ' '  inner  formlessness, ' '  except  in  the  greatly  modi- 
fied sense  that  syntactic  relations  may  be  fused  with 
notions  of  another  order.  To  this  criterion  of  classi- 
fication we  shall  have  to  return  a  little  later. 

More  justifiable  would  be  a  classification  according 
to  the  formal  processes  "^  most  typically  developed  in  the 
language.  Those  languages  that  always  identify  the 
word  with  the  radical  element  would  be  set  off  as  an 
"isolating"  group  against  such  as  either  affix  modifying 
elements  (affixing  languages)  or  possess  the  power  to 
change  the  significance  of  the  radical  element  by  in- 
ternal changes  (reduplication;  vocalic  and  consonantal 
change;  changes  in  quantity,  stress,  and  pitch).  The 
latter  type  might  be  not  inaptly  termed  "symbolic" 

5  Where,  as  we  have  seen,  the  syntactic  relations  are  by  no 
means  free  from  an  alloy  of  the  concrete. 

6  Very  much  as  an  English  cod-liver  oil  dodges  to  some  extent 
the  task  of  explicitly  defining  the  relations  of  the  three  nouns. 
Contrast  French  huile  do  foie  de  morue  "oil  of  liver  of  cod." 

7  See  Chapter  IV. 


134  LANGUAGE 

languages.^  The  affixing  languages  would  naturally  sub- 
divide themselves  into  such  as  are  prevailingly  prefix- 
ing, like  Bantu  or  Tlingit,  and  such  as  are  mainly  or 
entirely  suffixing,  like  Eskimo  or  Algonkin  or  Latin. 
There  are  two  serious  difficulties  with  this  fourfold  clas- 
sification (isolating,  prefixing,  suffixing,  symbolic).  In 
the  first  place,  most  languages  fall  into  more  than  one 
of  these  groups.  The  Semitic  languages,  for  instance, 
are  prefixing,  suffixing,  and  symbolic  at  one  and  the 
same  time.  In  the  second  place,  the  classification  in  its 
bare  form  is  superficial.  It  would  throw  together  lan- 
guages that  differ  utterly  in  spirit  merely  because  of 
a  certain  external  formal  resemblance.  There  is  clearly 
a  world  of  difference  between  a  prefixing  language  like 
Cambodgian,  which  limits  itself,  so  far  as  its  prefixes 
(and  infixes)  are  concerned,  to  the  expression  of  deriva- 
tional concepts,  and  the  Bantu  languages,  in  which  the 
prefixed  elements  have  a  far-reaching  significance  as 
symbols  of  syntactic  relations.  The  classification  has 
much  greater  value  if  it  is  taken  to  refer  to  the  expres- 
sion of  relational  concepts  ^  alone.  In  this  modified  form 
we  shall  return  to  it  as  a  subsidiary  criterion.  We  shall 
find  that  the  terms  "isolating,"  "affixing,"  and  "sym- 
bolic" have  a  real  value.  But  instead  of  distinguishing 
between  prefixing  and  suffixing  languages,  we  shall  find 
that  it  is  of  superior  interest  to  make  another  distinc- 
tion, one  that  is  based  on  the  relative  firmness  with 

8  Tliere  is  probably  a  real  psychological  connection  between  sym- 
bolism and  such  significant  alternations  as  drink,  drank,  drunk 
or  Chinese  mai  (with  rising  tone)  "to  buy"  and  mai  (with  fall- 
ing tone)  "to  sell."  The  unconscious  tendency  toward  symbolism 
is  justly  emphasized  by  recent  psychological  literature.  Personally 
T  feel  that  the  passage  from  sinrj  to  sang  has  very  much  the  same 
feeling  as  the  alternation  of  symbolic  colors — e.g.,  green  for  safe, 
red  for  danger.  But  we  probably  diiTer  greatly  as  to  the  intensity 
with  which  we  feel  symbolism  in  linguistic  changes  of  this  ty.oe. 

8  Pure  or  "concrete  relational."     See  Chapter  V. 


TYPES  OF  LINGUISTIC  STRUCTURE  135 

which  the  affixed  elements  are  united  with  the  core  of 
the  word." 

There  is  another  very  useful  set  of  distinctions  that 
can  be  made,  but  these  too  must  not  be  applied  exclu- 
sively, or  our  classification  will  again  be  superficial.  I 
refer  to  the  notions  of  "analytic,"  "synthetic,"  and 
"polysynthetic."  The  terms  explain  themselves.  An 
analytic  language  is  one  that  either  does  not  combine 
concepts  into  single  words  at  all  (Chinese)  or  does  so 
economically  (English,  French).  In  an  analytic  lan- 
guage the  sentence  is  always  of  prime  importance,  the 
word  is  of  minor  interest.  In  a  synthetic  language 
(Latin,  Arabic,  Finnish)  the  concepts  cluster  more 
thickly,  the  words  are  more  richly  chambered,  but  there 
is  a  tendency,  on  the  whole,  to  keep  the  range  of  con- 
crete significance  in  the  single  word  down  to  a  mod- 
erate compass.  A  polysynthetic  language,  as  its  name 
implies,  is  more  than  ordinarily  synthetic.  The  elabora- 
tion of  the  word  is  extreme.  Concepts  which  we  should 
never  dream  of  treating  in  a  subordinate  fashion  are 

10  In  spite  of  my  reluctance  to  emphasize  the  difference  between 
a  prefixing  and  a  suffixing  language,  I  feel  that  there  is  more 
involved  in  this  difference  tlian  linguists  have  generally  recog- 
nized. It  seems  to  me  that  there  is  a  rather  important  psycho- 
logical distinction  between  a  language  that  settles  the  formal 
status  of  a  radical  clement  before  announcing  it — and  this,  in 
effect,  is  what  such  languages  as  Tlingit  and  Chinook  and  Bantu 
are  in  the  habit  of  doing — and  one  that  begins  with  the  concrete 
nucleus  of  a  word  and  defines  the  status  of  this  nucleus  by  suc- 
cessive limitations,  each  curtailing  in  some  degree  the  generality 
of  all  that  precedes.  The  spirit  of  the  former  method  has  some- 
thing diagrammatic  or  architectural  about  it,  the  latter  is  a 
method  of  pruning  afterthoughts.  In  the  more  highly  wrought 
prefixing  languages  the  word  is  apt  to  affect  us  as  a  crystalliza- 
tion of  floating  elements,  the  words  of  the  typical  suffixing  lan- 
guages (Turkish,  Eskimo,  Nootka)  are  "determinative"  forma- 
tions, each  added  element  determining  the  form  of  the  whole  anew. 
It  is  so  difficult  in  practice  to  apply  these  elusive,  yet  impor- 
tant, distinctions  that  an  elementary  study  has  no  recourse  but  to 
ignore  them. 


136  LANGUAGE 

symbolized  by  derivational  affixes  or  ' '  symbolic ' '  changes 
in  the  radical  element,  while  the  more  abstract  notions, 
including  the  syntactic  relations,  may  also  be  conveyed 
by  the  word.  A  polysynthetic  language  illustrates  no 
principles  that  are  not  already  exemplified  in  the  more 
familiar  synthetic  languages.  It  is  related  to  them 
very  much  as  a  synthetic  language  is  related  to  our 
own  analytic  English.^^  The  three  terms  are  purely 
quantitative — and  relative,  that  is,  a  language  may  be 
"analytic"  from  one  standpoint,  "synthetic"  from  an- 
other. I  believe  the  terms  are  more  useful  in  defining 
certain  drifts  than  as  absolute  counters.  It  is  often 
illuminating  to  point  out  that  a  language  has  been 
becoming  more  and  more  analytic  in  the  course  of  its 
history  or  that  it  shows  signs  of  having  crystallized 
from  a  simple  analytic  base  into  a  highly  synthetic 
form.^^ 

"We  now  come  to  the  difference  between  an  "inflec- 
tive" and  an  "agglutinative"  language.  As  I  have  al- 
ready remarked,  the  distinction  is  a  useful,  even  a  neces- 
sary, one,  but  it  has  been  generally  obscured  by  a 
number  of  irrelevancies  and  by  the  unavailing  effort  to 
make  the  terms  cover  all  languages  that  are  not,  like 
Chinese,  of  a  definitely  isolating  cast.  The  meaning  that 
we  had  best  assign  to  the  term  ' '  inflective ' '  can  be  gained 
by  considering  very  briefly  what  are  some  of  the  basic 
features  of  Latin  and  Greek  that  have  been  looked  upon 

11  English,  however,  is  only  analytic  in  tendency.  Relatively 
to  French,  it  is  still  fairly    synthetic,  at  least  in  certain  aspects. 

12  The  former  process  is  demonstrable  for  English,  French,  Dan- 
ish, Tibetan,  Chinese,  and  a  host  of  other  languages.  The  latter 
tendency  may  be  proven,  I  believe,  for  a  number  of  American 
Indian  languages,  e.g.,  Chinook,  Navaho.  Underneath  tlieir  pres- 
ent moderately  polysynthetic  form  is  discernible  an  analytic  base 
that  in  the  one  case  may  be  roughly  described  as  English-like, 
in  the  other,  Tibetan-like. 


TYPES  OF  LINGUISTIC  STRUCTURE  137 

as  peculiar  to  the  inflective  languages.  First  of  all, 
they  are  synthetic  rather  than  analytic.  This  does  not 
help  us  much.  Relatively  to  many  another  language 
that  resembles  them  in  broad  structural  respects,  Latin 
and  Greek  are  not  notably  synthetic ;  on  the  other  hand, 
their  modern  descendants,  Italian  and  Modern  G-reek, 
while  far  more  analytic  ^^  than  they,  have  not  departed 
so  widely  in  structural  outlines  as  to  warrant  their  being 
put  in  a  distinct  major  group.  An  inflective  language, 
we  must  insist,  may  be  analytic,  synthetic,  or  polysyn- 
thetic. 

Latin  and  Greek  are  mainly  affixmg  in  their  method, 
with  the  emphasis  heavily  on  suffixing.  The  agglutina- 
tive languages  are  just  as  typically  affixing  as  they,  some 
among  them  favoring  prefixes,  others  running  to  the  use 
of  suffixes.  Affixing  alone  does  not  define  inflection. 
Possibly  everything  depends  on  just  what  kind  of  affix- 
ing we  have  to  deal  with.  If  we  compare  our  English 
words  farmer  and  goodness  with  such  words  as  height 
and  depth,  we  cannot  fail  to  be  struck  by  a  notable  dif- 
ference in  the  affixing  technique  of  the  two  sets.  The 
-er  and  -ness  are  affixed  quite  mechanically  to  radical 
elements  which  are  at  the  same  time  independent  words 
(farm,  good).  They  are  in  no  sense  independently  sig- 
nificant elements,  but  they  convey  their  meaning  (agen- 
tive,  abstract  quality)  with  unfailing  directness.  Their 
use  is  simple  and  regular  and  we  should  have  no  diffi- 
culty in  appending  them  to  any  verb  or  to  any  adjec- 
tive, however  recent  in  origin.  From  a  verb  to  camou- 
flage we  may  form  the  noun  camo^iflager  "one  who 
camouflages,"  from  an  adjective  jazzy  proceeds  with 

13  This  applies  more  particularly  to  the  Romance  group:  Italian, 
Spanish,  Portuguese,  French,  Roumanian.  Modern  Greek  is  not 
so  clearly  analytic. 


138  LANGUAGE 

perfect  ease  the  noun  jazziness.  It  is  different  with 
JieigJit  and  deptli.  Functionally  they  are  related  to 
JiigJi  and  deep  precisely  as  is  goodness  to  good,  but  the 
degree  of  coalescence  between  radical  element  and  affix 
is  greater.  Radical  element  and  affix,  while  measurably 
distinct,  cannot  be  torn  apart  quite  so  readily  as  could 
the  good  and  -ness  of  goodness.  The  4  of  height  is  not 
the  typical  form  of  the  affix  (compare  strength,  length, 
filth,  breadth,  youth),  while  dep-  is  not  identical  with 
deep.  We  may  designate  the  two  types  of  affixing  as 
''fusing"  and  "juxtaposing."  The  juxtaposing  tech- 
nique we  may  call  an  "agglutinative"  one,  if  w^e  like. 

Is  the  fusing  technique  thereby  set  off  as  the  essence 
of  inflection?  I  am  afraid  that  we  have  not  yet 
reached  our  goal.  If  our  language  were  crammed  full 
of  coalescences  of  the  type  of  depth,  but  if,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  used  the  plural  independently  of  verb  concord 
(e.g.,  the  hooks  falls  like  the  hook  falls,  or  the  hook  fall 
like  the  hooks  fall),  the  personal  endings  independently 
of  tense  (e.g.,  the  hook  fells  like  the  hook  falls,  or  the 
hook  fall  like  the  hook  fell),  and  the  pronouns  inde- 
pendently of  case  (e.g.,  I  see  he  like  he  sees  me,  or  him 
see  the  man  like  the  man  sees  him),  we  should  hesitate 
to  describe  it  as  inflective.  The  mere  fact  of  fusion 
does  not  seem  to  satisfy  us  as  a  clear  indication  of  the 
inflective  process.  There  are,  indeed,  a  large  number 
of  languages  that  fuse  radical  element  and  affix  in  as 
complete  and  intricate  a  fashion  as  one  could  hope  to 
find  anywhere  without  thereby  giving  signs  of  that  par- 
ticular kind  of  formalism  that  marks  off'  sucli  languages 
as  Latin  and  Greek  as  inflective. 

What  is  true  of  fusion  is  equally  true  of  the  "sym- 
bolic" processes.^*     There  are  linguists  that  speak  of 

14  See  pages  133,  134. 


TYPES  OF  LINGUISTIC  STRUCTURE  139 

alternations  like  drink  and  drank  as  though  they  repre- 
sented the  high-water  mark  of  inflection,  a  kind  of  spir- 
itualized essence  of  pure  inflective  form.  In  such  Greek 
forms,  nevertheless,  as  pcpom.pJi-a  "1  have  sent,"  as  con- 
trasted with  penip-o  ''I  send,"  with  its  trebly  symbolic 
change  of  the  radical  element  (reduplicating  pe-,  change 
of  e  to  0,  change  of  p  to  ph),  it  is  rather  the  peculiar 
alternation  of  the  first  person  singular  -a  of  the  perfect 
with  the  -0  of  the  present  that  gives  them  their  inflective 
cast.  Nothing  could  be  more  erroneous  than  to  imagine 
that  symbolic  changes  of  the  radical  element,  even  for 
the  expression  of  such  abstract  concepts  as  those  of  num- 
ber and  tense,  is  always  associated  with  the  syntactic 
peculiarities  of  an  inflective  language.  If  by  an  "ag- 
glutinative" language  we  mean  one  that  affixes  accord- 
ing to  the  juxtaposing  technique,  then  we  can  only  say 
that  there  are  hundreds  of  fusing  and  symbolic  lan- 
guages— non-agglutinative  by  definition — that  are,  for 
all  that,  quite  alien  in  spirit  to  the  inflective  type  of 
Latin  and  Greek.  "We  can  call  such  languages  inflective, 
if  we  like,  but  we  must  then  be  prepared  to  revise  radi- 
cally our  notion  of  inflective  form. 

It  is  necessary  to  understand  that  fusion  of  the  radi- 
cal element  and  the  affix  may  be  taken  in  a  broader  psy- 
chological sense  than  I  have  yet  indicated.  If  every 
noun  plural  in  English  were  of  the  type  of  hook:  hooks, 
if  there  were  not  such  conflicting  patterns  as  deer:  deer, 
ox:  oxen,  goose:  geese  to  complicate  the  general  form 
picture  of  plurality,  there  is  little  doubt  that  the  fusion 
of  the  elements  hook  and  -s  into  the  unified  word  hooks 
would  be  felt  as  a  little  less  complete  than  it  actually  is. 
One  reasons,  or  feels,  unconsciously  about  the  matter 
somewhat  as  follows: — If  the  form  pattern  represented 
by  the  word  hooks  is  identical,  as  far  as  use  is  concerned, 


140  LANGUAGE 

with  that  of  the  word  oxen,  the  pluralizing  elements  -s 
and  -en  cannot  have  quite  so  definite,  quite  so  autono- 
mous, a  value  as  we  might  at  first  be  inclined  to  sup- 
pose. They  are  plural  elements  only  in  so  far  as  plural- 
ity is  predicated  of  certain  selected  concepts.  The  words 
hooks  and  oxen  are  therefore  a  little  other  than  mechani- 
cal combinations  of  the  symbol  of  a  thing  {hook,  ox)  and 
a  clear  symbol  of  plurality.  There  is  a  slight  psycho- 
logical uncertainty  or  haze  about  the  juncture  in  hooks 
and  ox-en.  A  little  of  the  force  of  -s  and  -en  is  anticipated 
by,  or  appropriated  by,  the  words  hook  and  ox  them- 
selves, just  as  the  conceptual  force  of  -tli  in  dep-tli  is 
appreciably  weaker  than  that  of  -ness  in  good-ness  in 
spite  of  the  functional  parallelism  between  depth  and 
goodness.  Where  there  is  uncertainty  about  the  junc- 
ture, where  the  affixed  element  cannot  rightly  claim  to 
possess  its  full  share  of  significance,  the  unity  of  the 
complete  word  is  more  strongly  emphasized.  The  mind 
must  rest  on  something.  If  it  cannot  linger  on  the 
constituent  elements,  it  hastens  all  the  more  eagerly 
to  the  acceptance  of  the  word  as  a  whole.  A  word  like 
goodness  illustrates  ''agglutination,"  hooks  "regular 
fusion,"  depth  "irregular  fusion,"  geese  "symbolic  fu- 
sion" or  "symbolism."  ^^ 

The  psychological  distinctness  of  the  affixed  elements 
in  an  agglutinative  term  may  be  even  more  marked  than 
in  the  -ness  of  goodness.  To  be  strictly  accurate,  the 
significance  of  the  -ness  is  not  quite  as  inherently  deter- 

15  The  following  formulie  may  prove  useful  to  those  that  are 
mathcmatipally  inclined.  Agglutination:  c  =  a-j-t);  regular  fu- 
sion: c:=a-|-(b  — x)-f-x;  irregular  fusion:  cr=(a  — x)-}- 
(b  —  y)  -)-  (x-j-y);  symbolism  :c=:(a  —  x)-{-x.  I  do  not  wish 
to  imply  that  there  is  any  mystic  value  in  the  process  of  fusion. 
It  is  quite  likely  to  have  dev(>loped  as  a  pxirely  mechanical  prod- 
uct of  phonetic  forces  that  brought  about  irregularities  of  various 
aorts. 


TYPES  OF  LINGUISTIC  STRUCTURE  141 

mined,  as  autonomous,  as  it  might  be.  It  is  at  the  mercy 
of  the  preceding  radical  element  to  this  extent,  that  it 
requires  to  be  preceded  by  a  particular  type  of  such 
element,  an  adjective.  Its  own  power  is  thus,  in  a  man- 
ner, checked  in  advance.  The  fusion  here,  however,  is 
so  vague  and  elementary,  so  much  a  matter  of  course  in 
the  great  majority  of  all  cases  of  affixing,  that  it  is 
natural  to  overlook  its  reality  and  to  emphasize  rather 
the  juxtaposing  or  agglutinative  nature  of  the  affixing 
process.  If  the  -ness  could  be  affixed  as  an  abstractive 
element  to  each  and  every  type  of  radical  element,  if 
we  could  say  figJitness  ("the  act  or  quality  of  fighting") 
or  waterness  ("the  quality  or  state  of  water")  or  away- 
ness  ("the  state  of  being  away")  as  we  can  say  goodness 
("the  state  of  being  good"),  we  should  have  moved  ap- 
preciably nearer  the  agglutinative  pole,  A  language 
that  runs  to  synthesis  of  this  loose-jointed  sort  may  be 
looked  upon  as  an  example  of  the  ideal  agglutinative 
type,  particularly  if  the  concepts  expressed  by  the  agglu- 
tinated elements  are  relational  or,  at  the  least,  belong  to 
the  abstracter  class  of  derivational  ideas. 

Instructive  forms  may  be  cited  from  Nootka.  We 
shall  return  to  our  ' '  fire  in  the  house. ' '  ^®  The  Nootka 
word  inikiv-iJil  "fire  in  the  house"  is  not  as  definitely 
formalized  a  word  as  its  translation  suggests.  The 
radical  element  inikw-  "fire"  is  really  as  much  of  a 
verbal  as  of  a  nominal  term ;  it  may  be  rendered  now 
by  "fire,"  now  by  "burn,"  according  to  the  syntactic 
exigencies  of  the  sentence.  The  derivational  element  -ihl 
"in  the  house"  does  not  mitigate  this  vagueness  or  gen- 
erality; inikiv-ihl  is  still  "fire  in  the  house"  or  "burn 
in  the  house."  It  may  be  definitely  nominalized  or  ver- 
balized by  the  affixing  of  elements  that  are  exclusively 

16  See  page  110. 


142  LANGUAGE 

nominal  or  verbal  in  force.  For  example,  inikw-ihl-'i, 
with  its  suffixed  article,  is  a  clear-cut  nominal  form: 
"the  burning  in  the  house,  the  fire  in  the  house"; 
inikw-ihl-nm,  with  its  indicative  suffix,  is  just  as  clearly 
verbal :  "  it  burns  in  the  house. ' '  How  weak  must  be  the 
degree  of  fusion  between  "fire  in  the  house"  and  the 
nominalizing  or  verbalizing  suffix  is  apparent  from  the 
fact  that  the  formally  indifferent  inikwilil  is  not  an  ab- 
straction gained  by  analysis  but  a  full-fledged  word, 
ready  for  use  in  the  sentence.  The  nominalizing  -'i  and 
the  indicative  -ma  are  not  fused  form-affijxes,  they  are 
simply  additions  of  formal  import.  But  we  can  con- 
tinue to  hold  the  verbal  or  nominal  nature  of  inikwihl 
in  abeyance  long  before  we  reach  the  -  'i  or  -m<i.  We  can 
pluralize  it:  inikw-iJil-'miyiih;  it  is  still  either  "fires  in 
the  house"  or  "burn  plurally  in  the  house."  We  can 
diminutivize  this  plural:  inikw-ihl-'minili-'is,  "little 
fires  in  the  house  "  or  "  burn  plurally  and  slightly  in  the 
house."  What  if  we  add  the  preterit  tense  suffix  -itf 
Is  not  hiikw-ilil-'miniJi-'is-it  necessarily  a  verb:  "several 
small  fires  were  burning  in  the  house"?  It  is  not.  It 
may  still  be  nominalized ;  imkwiM'minili'isit-'i  means 
"the  former  small  fires  in  the  house,  the  little  fires  that 
were  once  burning  in  the  house."  It  is  not  an  un- 
ambiguous verb  until  it  is  given  a  form  that  excludes 
every  other  possibility,  as  in  the  indicative  inikwiJil- 
minih'isit-a  "several  small  fires  were  burning  in  the 
house."  We  recognize  at  once  that  the  elements  -ilil, 
-'minih,-'is,  and  -it,  quite  aside  from  the  relatively  con- 
crete or  abstract  nature  of  their  content  and  aside,  fur- 
ther, from  the  degree  of  their  outer  (phonetic)  cohe- 
sion with  the  elements  that  precede  them,  have  a  psycho- 
logical independence  that  our  own  affixes  never  have. 
They  are  typically  agglutinated  elements,  though  they 


TYPES  OF  LINGUISTIC  STRUCTURE  143 

have  no  greater  external  independence,  are  no  more 
capable  of  living  apart  from  the  radical  element  to  which 
they  are  suffixed,  than  the  -ness  and  goodness  or  the  -s 
of  books.  It  does  not  follow  that  an  agglutinative  lan- 
guage may  not  make  use  of  the  principle  of  fusion,  both 
external  and  psychological,  or  even  of  symbolism  to  a 
considerable  extent.  It  is  a  question  of  tendency.  Is 
the  formative  slant  clearly  towards  the  agglutinative 
method?  Then  the  language  is  "agglutinative."  As 
such,  it  may  be  prefixing  or  suffixing,  analytic,  synthetic, 
or  polysynthetic. 

To  return  to  inflection.  An  inflective  language  like 
Latin  or  Greek  uses  the  method  of  fusion,  and  this 
fusion  has  an  inner  psychological  as  well  as  an  outer 
phonetic  meaning.  But  it  is  not  enough  that  the  fusion 
operate  merely  in  the  sphere  of  derivational  concepts 
(group  11),^^  it  must  involve  the  syntactic  relations, 
which  may  either  be  expressed  in  unalloyed  form  (group 
rV)  or,  as  in  Latin  and  Greek,  as  "concrete  relational 
concepts"   (group  III).^®    As  far  as  Latin  and  Greek 

17  See  Chapter  V. 

IS  If  we  deny  the  application  of  the  term  "inflective"  to  fusing 
languages  that  express  the  syntactic  relations  in  pure  form,  that 
is,  witliout  the  admixture  of  such  concepts  as  number,  gender,  and 
tense,  merely  because  such  admixture  is  familiar  to  us  in  Latin 
and  Greek,  we  make  of  "inflection"  an  even  more  arbitrary  con- 
cept than  it  need  be.  At  the  same  time  it  is  trvie  that  the  method 
of  fusion  itself  tends  to  break  down  the  wall  between  our  concep- 
tual groups  II  and  IV,  to  create  group  III.  Yet  the  possibility 
of  such  "inflective"  langviages  should  not  be  denied.  In  modern 
Tibetan,  for  Instance,  in  which  concepts  of  group  II  are  but 
weakly  expressed,  if  at  all,  and  in  which  the  relational  concepts 
(e.g.,  the  genitive,  the  agentive  or  instrumental)  are  expressed 
without  alloy  of  the  material,  we  get  many  interesting  examples 
of  fusion,  even  of  symbolism.  Mi  di,  e.g.,  "man  this,  the  man" 
is  an  absolutive  form  which  may  be  used  as  the  subject  of  an 
intransitive  verb.  Wlien  the  verb  is  transitive  (really  passive), 
the  (logical)  subject  has  to  take  the  agentive  form,  ^fi  di  then 
becomes  mi  di  "by  the  man,"  the  vowel  of  the  demonstrative  pro- 
noun   (or  article)   being  merely  lengthened.      (There  is  orobably 


144  LANGUAGE 

are  concerned,  their  inflection  consists  essentially  of  the 
fusing  of  elements  that  express  logically  impure  rela- 
tional concepts  with  radical  elements  and  with  elements 
expressing  derivational  concepts.  Both  fusion  as  a  gen- 
eral method  and  the  expression  of  relational  concepts 
in  the  w^ord  are  necessary  to  the  notion  of  "inflection." 
But  to  have  thus  defined  inflection  is  to  doubt  the 
value  of  the  term  as  descriptive  of  a  major  class.  Why 
emphasize  both  a  technique  and  a  particular  content  at 
one  and  the  same  time?  Surely  we  should  be  clear 
in  our  minds  as  to  whether  we  set  more  store  by  one 
or  the  other.  ' '  Fusional ' '  and  ' '  symbolic ' '  contrast  with 
"agglutinative,"  which  is  not  on  a  par  with  "inflective" 
at  all.  What  are  we  to  do  with  the  fusional  and  sym- 
bolic languages  that  do  not  express  relational  concepts 
in  the  word  but  leave  them  to  the  sentence?  And  are 
we  not  to  distinguish  between  agglutinative  languages 
that  express  these  same  concepts  in  the  word — in  so  far 
inflective-like — and  those  that  do  not?  We  dismissed 
the  scale:  analytic,  synthetic,  polysynthetic,  as  too 
merely  quantitative  for  our  purpose.  Isolating,  afflx- 
ing,  symbolic — this  also  seemed  insufflcient  for  the  reason 
that  it  laid  too  much  stress  on  technical  externals.  Iso- 
lating, agglutinative,  fusional,  and  symbolic  is  a  pre- 
ferable scheme,  but  still  skirts  the  external.  We  shall 
do  best,  it  seems  to  me,  to  hold  to  "inflective"  as  a  val- 
uable suggestion  for  a  broader  and  more  consistently  de- 
veloped scheme,  as  a  hint  for  a  classification  based  on 
the  nature  of  the  concepts  expressed  by  the  language. 

also  a  change  in  the  tone  of  the  syllable.)  This,  of  course,  is  of 
the  very  essence  of  inflection.  It  is  an  amusing  commentary  on 
the  insufficiency  of  our  current  linguistic  classification,  which 
considers  "inflective"  and  "isolating"  as  worlds  asunder,  that 
modern  Tibetan  may  be  not  inaptly  described  as  an  isolating  lan- 
guage, aside  from  such  examples  of  fusion  and  symbolism  as  the 
foregoing. 


TYPES  OF  LINGUISTIC  STRUCTURE  145 

The  other  two  classifications,  the  first  based  on  degree 
of  synthesis,  the  second  on  degree  of  fusion,  may  be  re- 
tained as  intercrossing  schemes  that  give  us  the  oppor- 
tunity to  subdivide  our  main  conceptual  types. 

It  is  well  to  recall  that  all  languages  must  needs  ex- 
press radical  concepts  (group  I)  and  relational  ideas 
(group  IV).  Of  the  two  other  large  groups  of  con- 
cepts— derivational  (group  II)  and  mixed  relational 
(group  III) — both  may  be  absent,  both  present,  or  only 
one  present.  This  gives  us  at  once  a  simple,  incisive, 
and  absolutely  inclusive  method  of  classifying  all  known 
languages.     They  are : 

A.  Such  as  express  only  concepts  of  groups  I  and 
IV;  in  other  words,  languages  that  keep  the  syntactic 
relations  pure  and  that  do  not  possess  the  power  to 
modify  the  significance  of  their  radical  elements  by 
means  of  affixes  or  internal  changes.^''  We  may  call 
these  Pure-relational  non-deriving  languages  or,  more 
tersely.  Simple  Pure-relational  languages.  These  are 
the  languages  that  cut  most  to  the  bone  of  linguistic 
expression. 

B.  Such  as  express  concepts  of  groups  I,  II,  and  IV; 
in  other  words,  languages  that  keep  the  syntactic  rela- 
tions pure  and  that  also  possess  the  power  to  modify 
the  significance  of  their  radical  elements  by  means  of 
affixes  or  internal  changes.  These  are  the  Pure-rela- 
tional deriving  languages  or  Complex  Pure-relational 
languages. 

19 1  am  eliminating  entirely  the  possibility  of  compounding 
two  or  more  radical  elements  into  single  words  or  word-like 
phrases  (see  pages  67-70).  To  expressly  consider  compounding  in 
the  present  survey  of  types  would  be  to  complicate  our  problem 
unduly.  Most  languages  that  possess  no  derivational  affixes  of 
any  sort  may  nevertheless  freely  compound  radical  elements  (in- 
dependent words ) .  Such  compounds  often  have  a  fixity  that  sim- 
ulates the  iinity  of  single  words. 


146  LANGUAGE 

C.  Srch  as  express  concepts  of  groups  I  and  III ;  ^° 
in  other  words,  languages  in  which  the  syntactic  rela- 
tions are  expressed  in  necessary  connection  with  con- 
cepts that  are  not  utterly  devoid  of  concrete  significance 
but  that  do  not,  apart  from  such  mixture,  possess  the 
power  to  modify  the  significance  of  their  radical  elements 
by  means  of  affixes  or  internal  changes.-^  These  are  the 
Mixed-relational  non-deriving  languages  or  Simple 
Mixed-relational  languages. 

D.  Such  as  express  concepts  of  groups  I,  II,  and  III ; 
in  other  words,  languages  in  which  the  syntactic  rela- 
tions are  expressed  in  mixed  form,  as  in  C,  and  that 
also  possess  the  power  to  modify  the  significance  of  their 
radical  elements  by  means  of  affixes  or  internal  changes. 
These  are  the  Mixed-relational  deriving  languages  or 
Complex  Mixed-relational  languages.  Here  belong  the 
'^ inflective"  languages  that  we  are  most  familiar  with 
as  well  as  a  great  many  "agglutinative"  languages,  some 
"polysynthetic,"  others  merely  synthetic. 

This  conceptual  classification  of  languages,  I  must  re- 
peat, does  not  attempt  to  take  account  of  the  technical 
externals  of  language.     It  answers,  in  effect,  two  funda- 


20  We  may  assume  that  in  these  languages  and  in  those  of 
type  ])  all  or  most  of  the  relational  concepts  are  expressed  in 
"mixed"  form,  that  such  a  concept  as  that  of  subjectivity,  for 
instance,  cannot  be  expressed  without  simultaneously  involving 
number  or  gender  or  that  an  active  verb  form  must  be  possessed 
of  a  definite  tense.  Hence  groiip  III  will  be  iinderstood  to  include, 
or  ratlier  absorb,  group  IV.  Tlieoretically,  of  course,  certain  rela- 
tional concepts  may  be  expressed  pure,  others  mixed,  but  in  prac- 
tice it  will  not  be  found  easy  to  make  tlie  distinction. 

21  The  line  between  types  C  and  D  cannot  be  very  sharply 
drawn.  It  is  a  matter  largely  of  degree.  A  language  of  mark- 
edly mixed-relational  type,  but  of  little  power  of  derivation  pure 
and  simple,  such  as  Bantu  or  French,  may  be  conveniently  put 
into  type  C,  even  though  it  is  not  devoid  of  a  number  of  deriva- 
tional affixes.  Roughly  speaking,  languages  of  type  C  may  be 
considered  as  highly  analytic   ("purified")   forms  of  type  D. 


TYPES  OF  LINGUISTIC  STRUCTURE  14? 

mental  questions  concerning  the  translation  of  concepts 
into  linguistic  symbols.  Does  the  language,  in  the  first 
place,  keep  its  radical  concepts  pure  or  does  it  build  up 
its  concrete  ideas  by  an  aggregation  of  inseparable  ele- 
ments (types  A  and  C  versus  types  B  and  D)  ?  And, 
in  the  second  place,  does  it  keep  the  basic  relational  con- 
cepts, such  as  are  absolutely  unavoidable  in  the  ordering 
of  a  proposition,  free  of  an  admixture  of  the  concrete  or 
not  (types  A  and  B  versus  types  C  and  D)  ?  The  sec- 
ond question,  it  seems  to  me,  is  the  more  fundamental  of 
the  two.  We  can  therefore  simplify  our  classification 
and  present  it  in  the  following  form : 


I.     Pure-relational  Languages 
II.     Mixed-relational  Languages 


^  A.  Simple 

I B.  Complex 

( C.  Simple 

]  D.  Complex 


The  classification  is  too  sweeping  and  too  broad  for 
an  easy,  descriptive  survey  of  the  many  varieties  of 
human  speech.  It  needs  to  be  amplified.  Each  of  the 
types  A,  B,  C,  D  may  be  subdivided  into  an  agglutina- 
tive, a  fusional,  and  a  symbolic  sub-type,  according  to  the 
prevailing  method  of  modification  of  the  radical 
element.  In  type  A  we  distinguish  in  addition  an 
isolating  sub-type,  characterized  by  the  absence  of 
all  affixes  and  modifications  of  the  radical  element.  In 
the  isolating  languages  the  syntactic  relations  are  ex- 
pressed by  the  position  of  the  words  in  the  sentence. 
This  is  also  true  of  many  languages  of  type  B,  the  terms 
"agglutinative,"  ''fusional."  and  ''symbolic"  applying 
in  their  case  merely  to  the  treatment  of  the  derivational, 
not  the  relational,  concepts.     Such  languages  could  be 


148  LANGUAGE 

termed  "agglutinative-isolating,"  "fusional-isolating" 
and  ' '  symbolic-isolating. ' ' 

This  brings  up  the  important  general  consideration 
that  the  method  of  handling  one  group  of  concepts  need 
not  in  the  least  be  identical  with  that  used  for  another. 
Compound  terms  could  be  used  to  indicate  this  differ- 
ence, if  desired,  the  first  element  of  the  compound  re- 
ferring to  the  treatment  of  the  concepts  of  group  II, 
the  second  to  that  of  the  concepts  of  groups  III  and 
IV.  An  "agglutinative"  language  would  normally  be 
taken  to  mean  one  that  agglutinates  all  of  its  affixed  ele- 
ments or  that  does  so  to  a  preponderating  extent.  In 
an  "  agglutinative-f usional "  language  the  derivational 
elements  are  agglutinated,  perhaps  in  the  form  of  pre- 
fixes, while  the  relational  elements  (pure  or  mixed)  are 
fused  with  the  radical  element,  possibly  as  another  set 
of  prefixes  following  the  first  set  or  in  the  form  of  suf- 
fixes or  as  part  prefixes  and  part  suffixes.  By  a  ''fu- 
sional-agglutinative"  language  we  would  understand  one 
that  fuses  its  derivational  elements  but  allows  a  greater 
independence  to  those  that  indicate  relations.  All  these 
and  similar  distinctions  are  not  merely  theoretical  pos- 
sibilities, they  can  be  abundantly  illustrated  from  the 
descriptive  facts  of  linguistic  morphology.  Further, 
should  it  prove  desirable  to  insist  on  the  degree  of  elabo- 
ration of  the  word,  the  terms  "analytic,"  "synthetic," 
and  *'polysynthetic"  can  be  added  as  descriptive  terms. 
It  goes  without  saying  that  languages  of  type  A  are  nec- 
essarily analytic  and  that  languages  of  type  C  also  are 
prevailingly  analytic  and  are  not  likely  to  develop  be- 
yond the  synthetic  stage. 

But  we  must  not  make  too  much  of  terminology. 
Much  depends  on  the  relative  emphasis  laid  on  this  or 
that  feature  or  point  of  view.     The  method  of  classifying 


TYPES  OF  LINGUISTIC  STRUCTURE  149 

languages  here  developed  has  this  great  advantage,  that 
it  can  be  refined  or  simplified  according  to  the  needs 
of  a  particular  discussion.  The  degree  of  synthesis  may 
be  entirely  ignored;  "fusion"  and  "symbolism"  may 
often  be  combined  with  advantage  under  the  head  of 
"fusion";  even  the  difference  between  agglutination 
and  fusion  may,  if  desired,  be  set  aside  as  either  too 
difficult  to  draw  or  as  irrelevant  to  the  issue.  Languages, 
after  all,  are  exceedingly  complex  historical  structures. 
It  is  of  less  importance  to  put  each  language  in  a  neat 
pigeon-hole  than  to  have  evolved  a  flexible  method  which 
enables  us  to  place  it,  from  two  or  three  independent 
standpoints,  relatively  to  another  language.  All  this  is 
not  to  deny  that  certain  linguistic  types  are  more  stable 
and  frequently  represented  than  others  that  are  just  as 
possible  from  a  theoretical  standpoint.  But  we  are  too 
ill-informed  as  yet  of  the  structural  spirit  of  great  num- 
bers of  languages  to  have  the  right  to  frame  a  classifica- 
tion that  is  other  than  flexible  and  experimental. 

The  reader  will  gain  a  somewhat  livelier  idea  of  the 
possibilities  of  linguistic  morphology  by  glancing  down 
the  subjoined  analytical  table  of  selected  types.  The 
columns  II,  III,  IV  refer  to  the  groups  of  concepts  so 
numbered  in  the  preceding  chapter.  The  letters  a,  h,  c, 
d  refer  respectively  to  the  processes  of  isolation  (posi- 
tion in  the  sentence),  agglutination,  fusion,  and  sym- 
bolism. Where  more  than  one  technique  is  employed, 
they  are  put  in  the  order  of  their  importance.^- 

22  In  defining  the  type  to  which  a  language  belongs  one  must 
be  careful  not  to  be  misled  by  structural  features  which  are 
mere  survivals  of  an  older  stage,  which  have  no  productive 
life  and  do  not  enter  into  the  unconscious  patterning  of  the 
language.  All  languages  are  littered  with  such  petrified  bodies. 
The  English  -ster  of  spinster  and  Wehster  is  an  old  agentive 
suflSx,  but,  as  far  as  the  feeling  of  the  present  English-speaking 
generation   is   concerned,   it   cannot   be   said   to   really   exist   at 


150 


LANGUAGE 


^^^ 

^__ 

<i) 

a    o 

a 

a 

o 

"3 

a 

^4> 

5 

<    1 
a>     O 

(V 

a      a 
3      s: 

H 
a 

o 

a 
a          ,2 
.5          "3) 
"=^     _.     '= 

o     j2     =^ 

a 

"3 

—           2. 

u    a 

s 

ti     S     O 

H 

H 

O               M 

a;    !» 

o 

t> 

_o 

0) 

"9 

.a 

a> 

a 

s 

Xi 

o 

g 

o  >»        o  >ia 

o 

« 

o      o 

o 

^     a    .^ 

a 

~      o 

B     ^    B 

0) 

>> 

tSa     £a^ 

0)       -*-» 

Si 

i?   ^ 

Oi 

■a 

XJ        >> 

"5    ^    rt 

>. 

S5 

"3    "5 

dj 

a 

aw        a--D. 

a     S 

a     a 

a 

a     o     0 

>3 

o 

>i           >i 

>>    a 

<    < 

<^ 

<       04       < 

M 

04 

SQ               &Q 

cc    ■< 

<D 

o 

o 

to 

> 

i      i 

? 

a> 

i:      i 

a^~. 

13  u'-"  bJO 

u'^ 

>o 

.  ^  O        OS  c3 

.^ 

^ 

•^  C3 

rt  S  03  S    , 

a  rt 

rt  o 

s 

to     tt^ 

a     H^ 

—  3^ 

t:  a 
—  .2 

93?  «  a 
-o-o2 
M  "^  bij     a 

-  a 

*-5 

r  a 

-■:5t;-='-aa 

o.2Ss;-fl5§ 

*^  a  "^     *^  ib^ 

"3    -^ 
a     o 
o    ^ 

m    a 

a     t*4 

^1^ 

a;>. 
be 

w      to 

-!3 

<1    <J    fc. 

<J 

<J 

U*           < 

fe      02 

^ 

■«'« 

eS        .3"cj 

j= 

XI 

X! 

«  ":oi 

>--( 

es 

d 

03^ 

cd 

•o 

■^1 

I        1 

1 

1        1        I 

1 

_ 

t                1 

_ 

►^ 

1 

XI 

1  s 

■-s 

1        1 

1 

1         1        1 

^ 

I                               1 

■a 

>« 

-^3      ^ 

<y 

•^H 

1       "O 

2' 

Z,      £i        V 

XJ 

, 

t> 

1       -^ 

X! 

v^^ 

-o 

XJ 

to 

, 

5 

0) 

c^ 

3cr 

'^^ 

Qj  ea 

a 

"a 

u 

C,aj 

ftrt 

5 

a-3 

a«3 

■s 

s'' 

5 

t^ 

1 

TYPES  OF  LINGUISTIC  STRUCTURE 


151 


■5^  to 


a    .^ 


O    S-r 


a    b 


MS 

a  03 


Scs    -S 


aa 


4)  -M—J-l 


M      <1 


<!    fe 


So 
m 


"U^-.O) 

J3  >,ja 

a-o  a 

to  ca  CO 
t»-.n  fc% 

>-.j3 

«C1 

0      0 

a  >> 

(In      Ch 

Km 

1  tljO 

"•C.2 


3  CS 
tC  o 


— .— .  '^ 


;^    fa 


pa  a?, 

to  to^S 


T  ti  g  O 


1     I 


TC^     'OT3 


ag 


"O 

^ 

a 

oj 

D 

0 

0) 

^ 

H 

oj 

0 

u 

«p 

4) 

i> 

Ul 

ca 

3 

d 

ft 

— 

M 

ts  ft 

~  0) 

•  -I- 


152  LANGUAGE 

I  need  hardly  point  out  that  these  examples  are  far 
from  exhausting  the  possibilities  of  linguistic  structure. 
Nor  that  the  fact  that  two  languages  are  similarly  classi- 
fied does  not  necessarily  mean  that  they  present  a  great 
similarity  on  the  surface.  We  are  here  concerned  with 
the  most  fundamental  and  generalized  features  of  the 
spirit,  the  technique,  and  the  degree  of  elaboration  of 
a  given  language.  Nevertheless,  in  numerous  instances 
we  may  observe  this  highly  suggestive  and  remarkable 
fact,  that  languages  that  fall  into  the  same  class  have 
a  way  of  paralleling  each  other  in  many  details  or  in 
structural  features  not  envisaged  by  the  scheme  of  clas- 
sification. Thus,  a  most  interesting  parallel  could  be 
drawn  on  structural  lines  between  Takelma  and  Greek,^^ 
languages  that  are  as  geographically  remote  from  each 
other  and  as  unconnected  in  a  historical  sense  as  two 
languages  selected  at  random  can  well  be.  Their  simi- 
larity goes  beyond  the  generalized  facts  registered  in 
the  table.  It  would  almost  seem  that  linguistic  features 
that  are  easily  thinkable  apart  from  each  other,  that 
seem  to  have  no  necessary  connection  in  theory,  have 
nevertheless  a  tendency  to  cluster  or  to  follow  together 
in  the  wake  of  some  deep,  controlling  impulse  to  form 

all;  spinster  and  Webster  have  been  completely  disconnected 
from  the  etymological  group  of  spin  and  of  weave  ( web ) .  Simi- 
larly, there  are  hosts  of  related  words  in  Chinese  which  differ 
in  the  initial  consonant,  the  vowel,  the  tone,  or  in  the  presence 
or  absence  of  a  final  consonant.  Even  where  the  Chinaman  feels 
the  etymological  relationship,  as  in  certain  cases  he  can  hardly 
help  doing,  he  can  assign  no  particular  function  to  the  phonetic 
variation  as  such.  Hence  it  forms  no  live  feature  of  the  language- 
mechanism  and  must  be  ignored  in  defining  the  general  form  of 
the  language.  The  caution  is  all  the  more  necessary,  as  it  is 
precisely  the  foreigner,  who  approaches  a  new  language  with  a 
certain  prying  inquisitiveness,  that  is  most  apt  to  see  life  in 
vestigial  features  which  the  native  is  either  completely  unaware  of 
or   feels   merely   as   dead   form. 

23  Not  Greek  specifically,  of  course,  but  aa  a  typical  representa- 
tive of  Indo-European. 


TYPES  OF  LINGUISTIC  STRUCTURE  153 

that  dominates  their  drift.  If,  therefore,  we  can  only 
be  sure  of  the  intuitive  similarity  of  two  given  lan- 
guages, of  their  possession  of  the  same  submerged  form- 
feeling,  we  need  not  be  too  much  surprised  to  find  that 
they  seek  and  avoid  certain  linguistic  developments  in 
common.  We  are  at  present  very  far  from  able  to  de- 
fine just  what  these  fundamental  form  intuitions  are. 
We  can  only  feel  them  rather  vaguely  at  best  and  must 
content  ourselves  for  the  most  part  with  noting  their 
symptoms.  These  symptoms  are  being  garnered  in  our 
descriptive  and  historical  grammars  of  diverse  lan- 
guages. Some  day,  it  may  be,  we  shall  be  able  to  read 
from  them  the  great  underlying  ground-plans. 

Such  a  purely  technical  classification  of  languages  as 
the  current  one  into  ''isolating,"  ''agglutinative,"  and 
"inflective"  (read  "fusional")  cannot  claim  to  have 
great  value  as  an  entering  wedge  into  the  discovery  of 
the  intuitional  forms  of  language.  I  do  not  know 
whether  the  suggested  classification  into  four  conceptual 
groups  is  likely  to  drive  deeper  or  not.  My  own  feel- 
ing is  that  it  does,  but  classifications,  neat  constructions 
of  the  speculative  mind,  are  slippery  things.  They  have 
to  be  tested  at  every  possible  opportunity  before  they 
have  the  right  to  cry  for  acceptance.  Meanwhile  we 
may  take  some  encouragement  from  the  application  of 
a  rather  curious,  yet  simple,  historical  test.  Languages 
are  in  constant  process  of  change,  but  it  is  only  reason- 
able to  suppose  that  they  tend  to  preserve  longest  what 
is  most  fundamental  in  their  structure.  Now  if  we  take 
great  groups  of  genetically  related  languages,-*  we  find 
that  as  we  pass  from  one  to  another  or  trace  the  course 

24  Such,  in  other  words,  as  can  be  shown  by  documentary  or 
comparative  evidence  to  have  been  derived  from  a  common  source. 
See  Chapter  VII. 


154  LANGUAGE 

of  their  development  we  frequently  encounter  a  gradual 
change  of  morphological  type.  This  is  not  surprising, 
for  there  is  no  reason  why  a  language  should  remain  per- 
manently true  to  its  original  form.  It  is  interesting, 
however,  to  note  that  of  the  three  intercrossing  classifi- 
cations represented  in  our  table  (conceptual  type,  tech- 
nique, and  degree  of  synthesis),  it  is  the  degree  of  syn- 
thesis that  seems  to  change  most  readily,  that  the  tech- 
nique is  modifiable  but  far  less  readily  so,  and  that  the 
conceptual  type  tends  to  persist  the  longest  of  all. 

The  illustrative  material  gathered  in  the  table  is  far 
too  scanty  to  serve  as  a  real  basis  of  proof,  but  it  is 
highly  suggestive  as  far  as  it  goes.  The  only  changes 
of  conceptual  type  within  groups  of  related  languages 
that  are  to  be  gleaned  from  the  table  are  of  B  to  A 
(Shilluk  as  contrasted  with  Ewe;  -^  Classical  Tibetan  as 
contrasted  with  Modern  Tibetan  and  Chinese)  and  of 
D  to  C  (French  as  contrasted  with  Latin  -*').  But  types 
A :  B  and  C :  D  are  respectively  related  to  each  other  as 
a  simple  and  a  complex  form  of  a  still  more  fundamental 
type  (pure-relational,  mixed-relational).  Of  a  passage 
from  a  pure-relational  to  a  mixed-relational  type  or  vice 
versa  I  can  give  no  convincing  examples. 

The  table  shows  clearly  enough  how  little  relative  per- 
manence there  is  in  the  technical  features  of  language. 
That  highly  synthetic  languages  (Latin;  Sanskrit)  have 
frequently  broken  down  into  analytic  forms   (French; 

25  These  are  far-eastorn  and  far-western  representatives  of  the 
"Soudan"  group  recently  proposed  by  D.  Westermann.  The 
genetic  relationship  between  Ewe  and  Shilluk  is  exceedingly  re- 
mote at  best. 

26  This  case  is  doubtful  at  that.  I  have  put  French  in  C  rather 
than  in  D  with  considerable  misgivings.  Everything  depends  on 
how  one  evaluates  elements  like  -al  in  national,  -U  in  bont4,  or 
re-  in  retourner.  They  are  common  enough,  but  are  they  as  alive, 
as  little  petrified  or  bookish,  as  our  English  -ness  and  -ful  and 
un-? 


TYPES  OF  LINGUISTIC  STRUCTURE  155 

Bengali)  or  that  agglutinative  languages  (Finnish)  have 
in  many  instances  gradually  taken  on  "inflective"  fea- 
tures are  well-known  facts,  but  the  natural  inference  does 
not  seem  to  have  been  often  drawn  that  possibly  the 
contrast  between  synthetic  and  analytic  or  agglutinative 
and  "inflective"  (fusional)  is  not  so  fundamental  after 
all.  Turning  to  the  Indo-Chinese  languages,  we  find  that 
Chinese  is  as  near  to  being  a  perfectly  isolating  language 
as  any  example  we  are  likely  to  find,  while  Classical  Ti- 
betan has  not  only  fusional  but  strong  symbolic  features 
(e.g.,  g-tong-ba  "to  give,"  past  h-tang,  future  g-tang, 
imperative  tliong)  ;  but  both  are  pure-relational  lan- 
guages. Ewe  is  either  isolating  or  only  barely  agglutina- 
tive, while  Shilluk,  though  soberly  analytic,  is  one  of  the 
most  definitely  symbolic  languages  I  know ;  both  of  these 
Soudanese  languages  are  pure-relational.  The  relation- 
ship between  Polynesian  and  Cambodgian  is  remote, 
though  practically  certain;  while  the  latter  has  more 
markedly  fusional  features  than  the  former,-^  both  con- 
form to  the  complex  pure-relational  type.  Yana  and 
Salinan  are  superficially  very  dissimilar  languages. 
Yana  is  highly  polysynthetic  and  quite  typically  agglu- 
tinative, Salinan  is  no  more  synthetic  than  and  as  irreg- 
ularly and  compactly  fusional  ("inflective")  as  Latin; 
both  are  pure-relational.  Chinook  and  Takelma,  re- 
motely related  languages  of  Oregon,  have  diverged  very 
far  from  each  other,  not  only  as  regards  technique  and 
synthesis  in  general  but  in  almost  all  the  details  of 
their  structure ;  both  are  complex  mixed-relational  lan- 
guages, though  in  very  different  ways.  Facts  such  as 
these  seem  to  lend  color  to  the  suspicion  that  in  the 
contrast  of  pure-relational  and  mixed-relational  (or  con- 
crete-relational) we  are  confronted  by  something  deeper, 
27  In  spite  of  its  more  isolating  cast. 


156  LANGUAGE 

more  far-reaching,  than  the  contrast  of  isolating,  agglu- 
tinative, and  fusional.^* 

28  In  a  book  of  this  sort  it  is  naturally  impossible  to  give  an 
adequate  idea  of  linguistic  structure  in  ii,s  varying  forms.  Only 
a  few  schematic  indications  are  possible.  A  separate  volume 
would  be  needed  to  breathe  life  into  the  sclieme.  Such  a  volume 
would  point  out  the  salient  structural  characteristics  of  a  num- 
ber of  languages,  so  selected  as  to  give  the  reader  an  insight  into 
the  formal  economy  of  strikingly  divergent  types. 


VII 

LANGUAGE  AS  A  HISTORICAL  PEODUCT: 
DRIFT 

Every  one  knows  that  language  is  variable.  Two  in- 
dividuals of  the  same  generation  and  locality,  speaking 
precisely  the  same  dialect  and  moving  in  the  same  social 
circles,  are  never  absolutely  at  one  in  their  speech 
habits.  A  minute  investigation  of  the  speech  of  each 
individual  would  reveal  countless  differences  of  detail — 
in  choice  of  words,  in  sentence  structure,  in  the  relative 
frequency  with  which  particular  forms  or  combinations 
of  words  are  used,  in  the  pronunciation  of  particular 
vowels  and  consonants  and  of  combinations  of  vowels 
and  consonants,  in  all  those  features,  such  as  speed, 
stress,  and  tone,  that  give  life  to  spoken  language.  In 
a  sense  they  speak  slightly  divergent  dialects  of  the 
same  language  rather  than  identically  the  same  language. 

There  is  an  important  difference,  however,  between 
individual  and  dialectic  variations.  If  we  take  two 
closely  related  dialects,  say  English  as  spoken  by  the 
"middle  classes"  of  London  and  English  as  spoken  by 
the  average  New  Yorker,  we  observe  that,  however  much 
the  individual  speakers  in  each  city  differ  from 
each  other,  the  body  of  Londoners  forms  a  compact,  rela- 
tively unified  group  in  contrast  to  the  body  of  New 
Yorkers.  The  individual  variations  are  swamped  in  or 
absorbed  by  certain  major  agreements — say  of  pronun- 
ciation and  vocabulary — which  stand  out  very  strongly 

157 


158  LANGUAGE 

when  the  language  of  the  group  as  a  whole  is  contrasted 
with  that  of  the  other  group.  This  means  that  there  is 
something  like  an  ideal  linguistic  entity  dominating  the 
speech  habits  of  the  members  of  each  group,  that  the 
sense  of  almost  unlimited  freedom  which  each  individual 
feels  in  the  use  of  his  language  is  held  in  leash  by  a 
tacitly  directing  norm.  One  individual  plays  on  the 
norm  in  a  way  peculiar  to  himself,  the  next  individual 
is  nearer  the  dead  average  in  that  particular  respect  in 
which  the  first  speaker  most  characteristically  departs 
from  it  but  in  turn  diverges  from  the  average  in  a  way 
peculiar  to  himself,  and  so  on.  What  keeps  the  indi- 
vidual's variations  from  rising  to  dialectic  importance 
is  not  merely  the  fact  that  they  are  in  any  event  of 
small  moment — there  are  well-marked  dialectic  variations 
that  are  of  no  greater  magnitude  than  individual  varia- 
tions within  a  dialect — it  is  chiefly  that  they  are  silently 
"corrected"  or  canceled  by  the  consensus  of  usage.  If 
all  the  speakers  of  a  given  dialect  were  arranged  in 
order  in  accordance  with  the  degree  of  their  conformity 
to  average  usage,  there  is  little  doubt  that  they  would 
constitute  a  very  finely  intergrading  series  clustered 
about  a  well-defined  center  or  norm.  The  differences 
between  any  two  neighboring  speakers  of  the  series  ^ 
would  be  negligible  for  any  but  the  most  microscopic 
linguistic  research.  The  differences  between  the  outer- 
most members  of  the  series  are  sure  to  be  considerable, 
in  all  likelihood  considerable  enough  to  measure  up  to 
a  true  dialectic  variation.  What  prevents  us  from  say- 
ing that  these  untypical  individuals  speak  distinct  dia- 
lects is  that  their  peculiarities,  as  a  unified  whole,  are 

1  In  so  far  as  tlioy  do  not  fall  out  of  the  normal  speech  pjroup 
by  reason  of  a  marked  speech  defect  or  because  they  are  isolated 
foreigners  that  have  acQuired  the  language  late  in  life. 


DRIFT  159 

not  referable  to  another  norm  than  the  norm  of  their 
own  series. 

If  the  speech  of  any  member  of  the  series  could  actu- 
ally be  made  to  fit  into  another  dialect  series,^  we  should 
have  no  true  barriers  between  dialects  (and  languages) 
at  all.  We  should  merely  have  a  continuous  series  of 
individual  variations  extending  over  the  whole  range 
of  a  historically  unified  linguistic  area,  and  the  cutting 
up  of  this  large  area  (in  some  cases  embracing  parts  of 
several  continents)  into  distinct  dialects  and  languages 
would  be  an  essentially  arbitrary  proceeding  with  no 
warrant  save  that  of  practical  convenience.  But  such  a 
conception  of  the  nature  of  dialectic  variation  does  not 
correspond  to  the  facts  as  we  know  them.  Isolated  in- 
dividuals may  be  found  who  speak  a  compromise  be- 
tween two  dialects  of  a  language,  and  if  their  number 
and  importance  increases  they  may  even  end  by  creat- 
ing a  new  dialectic  norm  of  their  own,  a  dialect  in  which 
the  extreme  peculiarities  of  the  parent  dialects  are  ironed 
out.  In  course  of  time  the  compromise  dialect  may  ab- 
sorb the  parents,  though  more  frequently  these  will  tend 
to  linger  indefinitely  as  marginal  forms  of  the  enlarged 
dialect  area.  But  such  phenemena — and  they  are  com- 
mon enough  in  the  history  of  language — are  evidently 
quite  secondary.  They  are  closely  linked  with  such  so- 
cial developments  as  the  rise  of  nationality,  the  forma- 
tion of  literatures  that  aim  to  have  more  than  a  local 
appeal,  the  movement  of  rural  populations  into  the  cities, 
and  all  those  other  tendencies  that  break  up  the  intense 
localism  that  unsophisticated  man  has  always  found 
natural. 

2  Observe  that  we  are  speaking  of  an  individual's  speech  as  a 
whole.  It  is  not  a  question  of  isolating  some  particular  pecu- 
liarity of  pronunciation  or  usage  and  noting  its  resemblance  to 
or  identity  with  a  feature  in  another  dialect. 


160  LANGUAGE 

The  explanation  of  primary  dialectic  differences  is 
still  to  seek.  It  is  evidently  not  enough  to  say  that  if 
a  dialect  or  language  is  spoken  in  two  distinct  localities 
or  by  two  distinct  social  strata  it  naturally  takes  on 
distinctive  forms,  which  in  time  come  to  be  divergent 
enough  to  deserve  the  name  of  dialects.  This  is  cer- 
tainly true  as  far  as  it  goes.  Dialects  do  belong,  in  the 
first  instance,  to  very  definitely  circumscribed  social 
groups,  homogeneous  enough  to  secure  the  common  feel- 
ing and  purpose  needed  to  create  a  norm.  But  the  em- 
barrassing question  immediately  arises,  If  all  the  indi- 
vidual variations  within  a  dialect  are  being  constantly 
leveled  out  to  the  dialectic  norm,  if  there  is  no  appre- 
ciable tendency  for  the  individual's  peculiarities  to 
initiate  a  dialectic  schism,  why  should  we  have  dialectic 
variations  at  all?  Ought  not  the  norm,  wherever  and 
whenever  threatened,  automatically  to  reassert  itself? 
Ought  not  the  individual  variations  of  each  locality,  even 
in  the  absence  of  intercourse  between  them,  to  cancel 
out  to  the  same  accepted  speech  average? 

If  individual  variations  ''on  a  flat"  were  the  only 
kind  of  variability  in  language,  I  believe  we  should  be 
at  a  loss  to  explain  why  and  how  dialects  arise,  why 
it  is  that  a  linguistic  prototype  gradually  breaks  up 
into  a  number  of  mutually  unintelligible  languages.  But 
language  is  not  merely  something  that  is  spread  out 
in  space,  as  it  were — a  series  of  reflections  in  indi- 
vidual minds  of  one  and  the  same  timeless  picture.  Lan- 
guage moves  down  time  in  a  current  of  its  own  making. 
It  has  a  drift.  If  there  were  no  breaking  up  of  a  lan- 
guage into  dialects,  if  each  language  continued  as  a  firm, 
self-contained  unity,  it  would  still  be  constantly  moving 
away  from  any  assignable  norm,  developing  new  fea- 
tures unceasingly  and  gradually  transforming  itself  into 


DRIFT  161 

a  lan^age  so  different  from  its  starting  point  as  to  be 
in  effect  a  new  language.  Now  dialects  arise  not  be- 
cause of  the  mere  fact  of  individual  variation  but  be- 
cause two  or  more  groups  of  individuals  have  become 
sufficiently  disconnected  to  drift  apart,  or  independently, 
instead  of  together.  So  long  as  they  keep  strictly  to- 
gether, no  amount  of  individual  variation  would  lead 
to  the  formation  of  dialects.  In  practice,  of  course,  no 
language  can  be  spread  over  a  vast  territory  or  even 
over  a  considerable  area  without  showing  dialectic  va- 
riations, for  it  is  impossible  to  keep  a  large  population 
from  segregating  itself  into  local  groups,  the  language 
of  each  of  which  tends  to  drift  independently.  Under 
cultural  conditions  such  as  apparently  prevail  to-day, 
conditions  that  fight  localism  at  every  turn,  the  tend- 
ency to  dialectic  cleavage  is  being  constantly  counter- 
acted and  in  part  "corrected"  by  the  uniformizing  fac- 
tors already  referred  to.  Yet  even  in  so  young  a  coun- 
try as  America  the  dialectic  differences  are  not  incon- 
siderable. 

Under  primitive  conditions  the  political  groups  are 
small,  the  tendency  to  localism  exceedingly  strong.  It 
is  natural,  therefore,  that  the  languages  of  primitive 
folk  or  of  non-urban  populations  in  general  are  differ- 
entiated into  a  great  number  of  dialects.  There  are 
parts  of  the  globe  where  almost  every  village  has  its 
own  dialect.  The  life  of  the  geographically  limited 
community  is  narrow  and  intense ;  its  speech  is  corre- 
spondingly peculiar  to  itself.  It  is  exceedingly  doubtful 
if  a  language  will  ever  be  spoken  over  a  wide  area  with- 
out multiplying  itself  dialectically.  No  sooner  are  the 
old  dialects  ironed  out  by  compromises  or  ousted  by  the 
spread  and  influence  of  the  one  dialect  which  is  cul- 
turally predominant  when  a  new  crop  of  dialects  arises 


162  LANGUAGE 

to  "undo  the  leveling  work  of  the  past.  This  is  pre- 
cisely what  happened  in  Greece,  for  instance.  In 
classical  antiquity  there  were  spoken  a  large  number 
of  local  dialects,  several  of  which  are  represented  in 
the  literature.  As  the  cultural  supremacy  of  Athens 
grew,  its  dialect,  the  Attic,  spread  at  the  expense 
of  the  rest,  until,  in  the  so-called  Hellenistic  period 
following  the  Macedonian  conquest,  the  Attic  dia- 
lect, in  the  vulgarized  form  known  as  the  ' '  Koine, ' '  be- 
came the  standard  speech  of  all  Greece.  But  this  lin- 
guistic uniformity  ^  did  not  long  continue.  During  the 
two  millennia  that  separate  the  Greek  of  to-day  from 
its  classical  prototype  the  Koine  gradually  split  up  into 
a  number  of  dialects.  Now  Greece  is  as  richly  diversi- 
fied in  speech  as  in  the  time  of  Homer,  though  the  pres- 
ent local  dialects,  aside  from  those  of  Attica  itself,  are 
not  the  lineal  descendants  of  the  old  dialects  of  pre- 
Alexandrian  days.*  The  experience  of  Greece  is  not 
exceptional.  Old  dialects  are  being  continually  wiped 
out  only  to  make  room  for  new  ones.  Languages  can 
change  at  so  many  points  of  phonetics,  morphology,  and 
vocabulary  that  it  is  not  surprising  that  once  the  lin- 
guistic community  is  broken  it  should  slip  off  in  differ- 
ent directions.  It  would  be  too  much  to  expect  a  locally 
diversified  language  to  develop  along  strictly  parallel 
lines.  If  once  the  speech  of  a  locality  has  begun  to  drift 
on  its  own  account,  it  is  practically  certain  to  move  fur- 
ther and  further  away  from  its  linguistic  fellows.     Fail- 

3  It  is  doubtful  if  we  have  the  right  to  speak  of  linguistic  uni- 
formity even  during  the  predominance  of  the  Koine.  It  is  liardly 
conceivable  that  when  the  various  groups  of  non-Attic  Greeks 
took  on  the  Koine  they  did  not  at  once  tinge  it  with  dialectic 
peculiarities  induced  by  tlieir  previous  speech  habits. 

4  The  Zaconic  dialect  of  Lacedaemon  is  tlie  sole  exception.  It 
is  not  derived  from  the  Koine,  but  stems  directly  from  the  Doric 
dialect   of   Sparta. 


DRIFT  163 

ing  the  retarding  effect  of  dialectic  interinfluences, 
which  I  have  already  touched  upon,  a  group  of  dialects 
is  bound  to  diverge  on  the  whole,  each  from  all  of  the 
others. 

In  course  of  time  each  dialect  itself  splits  up  into  sub- 
dialects,  which  gradually  take  on  the  dignity  of  dialects 
proper  while  the  primary  dialects  develop  into  mutu- 
ally unintelligible  languages.  And  so  the  budding  proc- 
ess continues,  until  the  divergences  become  so  great  that 
none  but  a  linguistic  student,  armed  with  his  docu- 
mentary evidence  and  with  his  comparative  or  recon- 
structive method,  would  infer  that  the  languages  in 
question  were  genealogically  related,  represented  inde- 
pendent lines  of  development,  in  other  words,  from 
a  remote  and  common  starting  point.  Yet  it  is  as 
certain  as  any  historical  fact  can  be  that  languages  so 
little  resembling  each  other  as  Modern  Irish,  English, 
Italian,  Greek,  Russian,  Armenian,  Persian,  and  Ben- 
gali are  but  end-points  in  the  present  of  drifts  that 
converge  to  a  meeting-point  in  the  dim  past.  There  is 
naturally  no  reason  to  believe  that  this  earliest  "Indo- 
European"  (or  "Aryan")  prototype  which  we  can  in 
part  reconstruct,  in  part  but  dimly  guess  at,  is  itself 
other  than  a  single  "dialect"  of  a  group  that  has  either 
become  largely  extinct  or  is  now  further  represented  by 
languages  too  divergent  for  us,  with  our  limited  means, 
to  recognize  as  clear  kin.^ 

All  languages  that  are  known  to  be  genetically  re- 
lated, i.e.,  to  be  divergent  forms  of  a  single  prototype, 
may  be  considered  as  constituting  a  "linguistic  stock." 
There  is  nothing  final  about  a  linguistic  stock.     When 

5  Though  indications  are  not  lacking  of  what  these  remoter  kin 
of  the  Indo-European  languages  may  be.  This  is  disputed  ground, 
however,  and  hardly  fit  subject  for  a  purely  general  study  of 
speech. 


164  LANGUAGE 

we  set  it  up,  we  merely  say,  in  effect,  that  thus  far  we 
can  go  and  no  farther.  At  any  point  in  the  progress 
of  our  researches  an  unexpected  ray  of  light  may  reveal 
the  "stock"  as  but  a  "dialect"  of  a  larger  group.  The 
terms  dialect,  language,  branch,  stock — it  goes  without 
saying — are  purely  relative  terms.  They  are  convertible 
as  our  perspective  widens  or  contracts.^  It  would  be 
vain  to  speculate  as  to  whether  or  not  we  shall  ever  be 
able  to  demonstrate  that  all  languages  stem  from  a  com- 
mon source.  Of  late  years  linguists  have  been  able  to 
make  larger  historical  syntheses  than  were  at  one  time 
deemed  feasible,  just  as  students  of  culture  have  been 
able  to  show  historical  connections  between  culture  areas 
or  institutions  that  were  at  one  time  believed  to  be  totally 
isolated  from  each  other.  The  human  world  is  con- 
tracting not  only  prospectively  but  to  the  backward- 
probing  eye  of  culture-history.  Nevertheless  we  are  as 
yet  far  from  able  to  reduce  the  riot  of  spoken 
languages  to  a  small  number  of  ' '  stocks. ' '  "We  must  still 
operate  with  a  quite  considerable  number  of  these  stocks. 
Some  of  them,  like  Indo-European  or  Indo-Chinese,  are 
spoken  over  tremendous  reaches;  others,  like  Basque,'^ 
have  a  curiously  restricted  range  and  are  in  all  likeli- 
hood but  dwindling  remnants  of  groups  that  were  at 
one  time  more  widely  distributed.  As  for  the  single 
or  multiple  origin  of  speech,  it  is  likely  enough  that  lan- 
guage as  a  human  institution  (or,  if  one  prefers,  as  a 
human  "faculty")  developed  but  once  in  the  history 
of  the  race,  that  all  the  complex  history  of  language  is 
a  unique  cultural  event.  Such  a  theory  constructed 
"on  general  principles"  is  of  no  real  interest,  however, 

6  "Dialect"  in  contrast  to  an  accepted  literary  norm  is  a  use  of 
the  term  that  we  are  not  considering. 

7  Spoken  in  France  and  Spain  in  the  region  of  the  Pyrenees. 


DRIFT  165 

to  linguistic  science.    What  lies  beyond  the  demonstrable 
must  be  left  to  the  philosopher  or  the  romancer. 

We  must  return  to  the  conception  of  "drift"  in  lan- 
guage. If  the  historical  changes  that  take  place  in  a 
language,  if  the  vast  accumulation  of  minute  modifica- 
tions which  in  time  results  in  the  complete  remodeling  of 
the  language,  are  not  in  essence  identical  with  the  indi- 
vidual variations  that  we  note  on  every  hand  about  us, 
if  these  variations  are  born  only  to  die  without  a  trace, 
while  the  equally  minute,  or  even  minuter,  changes  that 
make  up  the  drift  are  forever  imprinted  on  the  history 
of  the  language,  are  we  not  imputing  to  this  history  a 
certain  mystical  quality?  Are  we  not  giving  language 
a  power  to  change  of  its  own  accord  over  and  above  the 
involuntary  tendency  of  individuals  to  vary  the  norm? 
And  if  this  drift  of  language  is  not  merely  the  familiar 
set  of  individual  variations  seen  in  vertical  perspective, 
that  is  historically,  instead  of  horizontally,  that  is  in 
daily  experience,  what  is  it?  Language  exists  only 
in  so  far  as  it  is  actually  used — spoken  and  heard,  writ- 
ten and  read.  What  significant  changes  take  place  in  it 
must  exist,  to  begin  with,  as  individual  variations.  This 
is  perfectly  true,  and  yet  it  by  no  means  follows  that 
the  general  drift  of  language  can  be  understood  *  from 
an  exhaustive  descriptive  study  of  these  variations  alone. 
They  themselves  are  random  phenomena,^  like  the  waves 
of  the  sea,  moving  backward  and  forward  in  purposeless 
flux.  The  linguistic  drift  has  direction.  In  other  words, 
only  those  individual  variations  embody  it  or  carry  it 
which  move  in  a  certain  direction,  just  as  only  certain 
wave  movements  in  the  bay  outline  the  tide.     The  drift 

8  Or  rather  apprehended,  for  we  do  not,  in  sober  fact,  entirely 
understand  it  as  yet. 

S'Not  ultimately  random,  of  course,  only  relatively  so. 


166  LANGUAGE 

of  a  language  is  constituted  by  the  unconscious  selection 
on  the  part  of  its  speakers  of  those  individual  variations 
that  are  cumulative  in  some  special  direction.  This  di- 
rection may  be  inferred,  in  the  main,  from  the  past 
history  of  the  language.  In  the  long  run  any  new  fea- 
ture of  the  drift  becomes  part  and  parcel  of  the  com- 
mon, accepted  speech,  but  for  a  long  time  it  may  exist 
as  a  mere  tendency  in  the  speech  of  a  few,  perhaps  of 
a  despised  few.  As  we  look  about  us  and  observe  cur- 
rent usage,  it  is  not  likely  to  occur  to  us  that  our  lan- 
guage has  a  "slope,"  that  the  changes  of  the  next  few 
centuries  are  in  a  sense  prefigured  in  certain  obscure 
tendencies  of  the  present  and  that  these  changes,  when 
consummated,  will  be  seen  to  be  but  continuations  of 
changes  that  have  been  already  effected.  We  feel 
rather  that  our  language  is  practically  a  fixed  system  and 
that  what  slight  changes  are  destined  to  take  place  in 
it  are  as  likely  to  move  in  one  direction  as  another.  The 
feeling  is  fallacious.  Our  very  uncertainty  as  to  the 
impending  details  of  change  makes  the  eventual  con- 
sistency of  their  direction  all  the  more  impressive. 

Sometimes  we  can  feel  where  the  drift  is  taking  us 
even  while  we  struggle  against  it.  Probably  the  ma- 
jority of  those  who  read  these  words  feel  that  it  is 
quite  "incorrect"  to  say  "Who  did  you  see?"  We 
readers  of  many  books  are  still  very  careful  to  say 
"Whom  did  you  see?"  but  we  feel  a  little  uncomfort- 
able (uncomfortably  proud,  it  may  be)  in  the  process. 
We  are  likely  to  avoid  the  locution  altogether  and  to 
say  "Who  was  it  you  saw?"  conserving  literary  tradi- 
tion (the  "whom")  with  the  dignity  of  silence.^"    The 

10  In  relative  clauses  too  we  tend  to  avoid  tlie  objective  form  of 
who."  Instead  of  "The  man  whom  I  saw"  we  are  likely  to  say 
The  man  that  I  saw"  or  "The  man  I  saw." 


DRIFT  167 

folk  makes  no  apology.  ''Whom  did  you  see?"  might 
do  for  an  epitaph,  but  "Who  did  you  see?"  is  the  natu- 
ral form  for  an  eager  inquiry.  It  is  of  course  the  un- 
controlled speech  of  the  folk  to  which  we  must  look 
for  advance  information  as  to  the  general  linguistic 
movement.  It  is  safe  to  prophesy  that  within  a  couple 
of  hundred  years  from  to-day  not  even  the  most  learned 
jurist  will  be  saying  "Whom  did  you  see?"  By  that 
time  the  "whom"  will  be  as  delightfully  archaic  as  the 
Elizabethan  "his"  for  "its.""  No  logical  or  histori- 
cal argument  will  avail  to  save  this  hapless  "whom." 
The  demonstration  "  I :  me  =  he :  him  =  who :  whom ' ' 
will  be  convincing  in  theory  and  will  go  unheeded 
in  practice. 

Even  now  we  may  go  so  far  as  to  say  that  the 
majority  of  us  are  secretly  wishing  they  could  say  "Who 
did  you  see?"  It  would  be  a  weight  off  their  uncon- 
scious minds  if  some  divine  authority,  overruling  the 
lifted  finger  of  the  pedagogue,  gave  them  carte  hlanche. 
But  we  cannot  too  frankly  anticipate  the  drift  and 
maintain  caste.  We  must  affect  ignorance  of  whither 
we  are  going  and  rest  content  with  our  mental 
conflict — uncomfortable  conscious  acceptance  of  the 
"whom,"  unconscious  desire  for  the  "who."^-    Mean- 

11  "Its"  was  at  one  time  as  impertinent  a  departure  as  the 
"who"  of  "Wlio  did  you  see?"  It  forced  itself  into  English  be- 
cause the  old  cleavage  between  masculine,  feminine,  and  neuter 
was  being  slowly  and  powerfully  supplemented  by  a  new  one 
between  thing-class  and  animate-class.  The  latter  classification 
proved  too  vital  to  allow  usage  to  couple  males  and  things  ( "his" ) 
as  against  females  ('Hier").  The  form  "its"  had  to  be  created 
on  the  analogy  of  words  like  "man's,"  to  satisfy  the  growing  form 
feeling.  The  drift  was  strong  enough  to  sanction  a  grammatical 
blunder. 

12  Psychoanalysts  will  recognize  the  mechanism.  The  mechan- 
isms of  "repression  of  impulse"  and  of  its  symptomatic  sym- 
bolization  can  be  illustrated  in  the  most  unexpected  corners  of 
individual    and   group   psychology.     A  more  general   psychology 


168  LANGUAGE 

while  we  indulge  our  sneaking  desire  for  the  forbidden 
locution  by  the  use  of  the  "who"  in  certain  twilight 
cases  in  which  we  can  cover  up  our  fault  by  a  bit  of 
unconscious  special  pleading.  Imagine  that  some  one 
drops  the  remark  when  you  are  not  listening  attentively, 
"John  Smith  is  coming  to-night."  You  have  not  caught 
the  name  and  ask,  not  "Wliom  did  you  say?"  but  "Who 
did  you  say?"  There  is  likely  to  be  a  little  hesitation 
in  the  choice  of  the  form,  but  the  precedent  of  usages 
like  ' '  Whom  did  you  see  ?  "  will  probably  not  seem  quite 
strong  enough  to  induce  a  "Whom  did  you  say?"  Not 
quite  relevant  enough,  the  grammarian  may  remark, 
for  a  sentence  like  "Who  did  you  say?"  is  not  strictly 
analogous  to  "Whom  did  you  see?"  or  "Whom  did  you 
mean?"  It  is  rather  an  abbreviated  form  of  some  such 
sentence  as  "Who,  did  you  say,  is  coming  to-night*?" 
This  is  the  special  pleading  that  I  have  referred  to,  and 
it  has  a  certain  logic  on  its  side.  Yet  the  case  is  more 
hollow  than  the  grammarian  thinks  it  to  be,  for  in  reply 
to  such  a  query  as  "You're  a  good  hand  at  bridge, 
John,  aren't  you?"  John,  a  little  taken  aback,  might 
mutter  "Did  you  say  me?"  hardly  "Did  you  say  I?" 
Yet  the  logic  for  the  latter  ("Did  you  say  I  was  a  good 
hand  at  bridge?")  is  evident.  The  real  point  is  that 
there  is  not  enough  vitality  in  the  "whom"  to  carry  it 
over  such  little  difficulties  as  a  "me"  can  compass  with- 
out a  thought.  The  proportion  "  I :  me  =  he :  him  =: 
who:  whom"  is  logically  and  historically  sound,  but 
psychologically  shaky.  "Whom  did  you  see?"  is  cor- 
rect, but  there  is  something  false  about  its  correctness. 
It  is  worth  looking  into  the  reason  for  our  curious 

than  Freud'a  will  eventually  prove  them  to  be  as  applicable  to 
the  groping  for  abstract  form,  the  logical  or  estlictic  ordering 
of  experience,  aa  to  the  life  of  the  fundamental  instincts. 


DRIFT  169 

reluctance  to  use  locutions  involving  the  word  "whom,** 
particularly  in  its  interrogative  sense.  The  only  distinc- 
tively objective  forms  which  we  still  possess  in  English 
are  me,  liini,  Tier  (a  little  blurred  because  of  its  identity 
with  the  possessive  Jier),  us,  tliem,  and  whom.  In  all 
other  cases  the  objective  has  come  to  be  identical  with 
the  subjective — that  is,  in  outer  form,  for  we  are  not 
now  taking  account  of  position  in  the  sentence.  We  ob- 
serve immediately  in  looking  through  the  list  of  objec- 
tive forms  that  whom,  is  psychologically  isolated.  Me, 
Mm,  her,  us,  and  them  form  a  solid,  well-integrated 
group  of  objective  personal  pronouns  parallel  to  the 
subjective  series  I,  he,  she,  we,  they.  The  forms  who 
and  whom  are  technically  ''pronouns"  but  they  are  not 
felt  to  be  in  the  same  box  as  the  personal  pronouns. 
Whom  has  clearly  a  weak  position,  an  exposed  flank, 
for  words  of  a  feather  tend  to  flock  together,  and  if  one 
strays  behind,  it  is  likely  to  incur  danger  of  life.  Now 
the  other  interrogative  and  relative  pronouns  (which, 
what,  that),  with  which  whom  should  properly  flock,  do 
not  distinguish  the  subjective  and  objective  forms.  It 
is  psychologically  unsound  to  draw  the  line  of  form 
cleavage  between  whom  and  the  personal  pronouns  on 
the  one  side,  the  remaining  interrogative  and  relative 
pronouns  on  the  other.  The  form  groups  should  be  sym- 
metrically related  to,  if  not  identical  with,  the  function 
groups.  Had  which,  what,  and  that  objective  forms 
parallel  to  whom,  the  position  of  this  last  would  be  more 
secure.  As  it  is,  there  is  something  unesthetic  about 
the  word.  It  suggests  a  form  pattern  which  is  not  filled 
out  by  its  fellows.  The  only  way  to  remedy  the  irregu- 
larity of  form  distribution  is  to  abandon  the  whom  alto- 
gether, for  we  have  lost  the  power  to  create  new  objec- 
tive forms  and  cannot  remodel  our  which-what-that  group 


170  LANGUAGE 

so  as  to  make  it  parallel  with  the  smaller  group  wJio- 
wTiom.  Once  this  is  done,  who  joins  its  flock  and  our 
unconscious  desire  for  form  symmetry  is  satisfied.  "We 
do  not  secretly  chafe  at  '  *  Whom  did  you  see  ? ' '  without 
reason." 

But  the  drift  away  from  wlwm  has  still  other  deter- 
minants. The  words  wlio  and  wliovi  in  their  interroga- 
tive sense  are  psychologically  related  not  merely  to  the 
pronouns  which  and  what,  but  to  a  group  of  interroga- 
tive adverbs — where,  when,  how — al\  of  which  are  in- 
variable and  generally  emphatic.  I  believe  it  is  safe 
to  infer  that  there  is  a  rather  strong  feeling  in  English 
that  the  interrogative  pronoun  or  adverb,  typically  an 
emphatic  element  in  the  sentence,  should  be  invariable. 
The  inflective  -m  of  whom  is  felt  as  a  drag  upon  the 
rhetorical  effectiveness  of  the  word.  It  needs  to  be 
eliminated  if  the  interrogative  pronoun  is  to  receive  all 
its  latent  power.  There  is  still  a  third,  and  a  very 
powerful,  reason  for  the  avoidance  of  whom.  The  con- 
trast between  the  subjective  and  objective  series  of  per- 
sonal pronouns  (/,  he,  she,  we,  tlicy:me,  him,  her,  us, 
them)  is  in  English  associated  with  a  difference  of  posi- 
tion. We  say  /  see  the  man  but  the  man  sees  me;  he 
told  him-,  never  him  he  told  or  him  told  he.  Such  usages 
as  the  last  two  are  distinctly  poetic  and  archaic ;  they 
are  opposed  to  the  present  drift  of  the  language.  Even 
in  the  interrogative  one  does  not  say  Him  did  you  see? 
It  is  only  in  sentences  of  the  type  Whom  did  you  see? 
that  an  inflected  objective  before  the  verb  is  now  used 

13  Note  that  it  is  different  witli  irhose.  Tliis  has  not  the 
support  of  analogous  possessive  forma  in  its  own  functional  group, 
but  the  analogical  power  of  tlie  great  body  of  possessives  of 
nouns  {man's,  boi/'s)  as  well  as  of  certain  personal  pronouns  {his, 
its;  as  predicated  possessive  also  hers,  yours,  theirs)  is  sufticient 
to  give   it  vitality. 


DRIFT  171 

at  all.  On  the  other  hand,  the  order  in  Whom  did  you 
see?  is  imperative  because  of  its  interrogative  form;  the 
interrogative  pronoun  or  adverb  normally  comes  first  in 
the  sentence  {What  are  yon  doing?  When  did  he  go? 
Where  are  you  from?).  In  the  "whom"  of  Whom  did 
you  see?  there  is  concealed,  therefore,  a  conflict  between 
the  order  proper  to  a  sentence  containing  an  inflected  ob- 
jective and  the  order  natural  to  a  sentence  with  an  inter- 
rogative pronoun  or  adverb.  The  solution  Did  you  see 
whom?  or  You  saw  whom?  ^*  is  too  contrary  to  the  idio- 
matic drift  of  our  language  to  receive  acceptance.  The 
more  radical  solution  Who  did  you  see?  is  the  one  the 
language  is  gradually  making  for. 

These  three  conflicts — on  the  score  of  form  grouping, 
of  rhetorical  emphasis,  and  of  order — are  supplemented 
by  a  fourth  difficulty.  The  emphatic  whom,  with  its 
heavy  build  (half -long  vowel  followed  by  labial  con- 
sonant), should  contrast  with  a  lightly  tripping  syllable 
immediately  following.  In  whom  did,  however,  we  have 
an  involuntary  retardation  that  makes  the  locution  sound 
"clumsy."  This  clumsiness  is  a  phonetic  verdict,  quite 
apart  from  the  dissatisfaction  due  to  the  grammatical 
factors  which  we  have  analyzed.  The  same  prosodic  ob- 
jection does  not  apply  to  such  parallel  locutions  as  what 
did  and  ivhen  did.  The  vowels  of  what  and  when  are 
shorter  and  their  final  consonants  melt  easily  into  the 
following  d,  which  is  pronounced  in  the  same  tongue 
position  as  t  and  n.  Our  instinct  for  appropriate 
rhythms  makes  it  as  difficult  for  us  to  feel  content  with 
whom  did  as  for  a  poet  to  use  words  like  dreamed  and 

1*  Aside  from  certain  idiomatic  usages,  as  when  You  saw  tvhomf 
is  equivalent  to  You  saw  so  and  so  and  that  so  and  so  is  ichof 
In  such  sentences  whom  is  pronounced  high  and  lingeringly  to 
emphasize  the  fact  that  the  person  just  referred  to  by  the  listener 
is  not  known  or  recognized. 


172  LANGUAGE 

hummtd  in  a  rapid  line.  Neither  common  feeling  nor 
the  poet's  choice  need  be  at  all  conscious.  It  may  be 
that  not  all  are  equally  sensitive  to  the  rhythmic  flow 
of  speech,  but  it  is  probable  that  rhythm  is  an  uncon- 
scious linguistic  determinant  even  with  those  who  set 
little  store  by  its  artistic  use.  In  any  event  the  poet's 
rhythms  can  only  be  a  more  sensitive  and  stylicized  ap- 
plication of  rhythmic  tendencies  that  are  characteristic 
of  the  daily  speech  of  his  people. 

We  have  discovered  no  less  than  four  factors  which 
enter  into  our  subtle  disinclination  to  say  "Whom  did 
you  see?"  The  uneducated  folk  that  says  "Who  did 
you  see?"  with  no  twinge  of  conscience  has  a  more  acute 
flair  for  the  genuine  drift  of  the  language  than  its 
students.  Naturally  the  four  restraining  factors  do 
not  operate  independently.  Their  separate  energies,  if 
we  may  make  bold  to  use  a  mechanical  concept,  are 
"canalized"  into  a  single  force.  This  force  or  minute 
embodiment  of  the  general  drift  of  the  language  is  psy- 
chologically registered  as  a  slight  hesitation  in  using 
the  word  whom.  The  hesitation  is  likely  to  be  quite  un- 
conscious, though  it  may  be  readily  acknowledged  when 
attention  is  called  to  it.  The  analysis  is  certain  to  be 
unconscious,  or  rather  unknown,  to  the  normal  speaker.^^ 
How,  then,  can  we  be  certain  in  such  an  analysis  as  we 
have  undertaken  that  all  of  the  assigned  determinants 
are  really  operative  and  not  merely  some  one  of  them? 
Certainly  they  are  not  equally  powerful  in  all  eases. 
Their  values  are  variable,  rising  and  falling  according 
to  the  individual  and  the  locution.^^    But  that  they  really 

15  students  of  language  cannot  be  entirely  normal  in  their  atti- 
tude towards  their  own  speech.  Perhaps  it  would  be  better  to 
say  "naiVe"  than  "normal." 

16  It  is  probably  this  variability  of  value  in  the  sigriificant 
compounds  of  a  general   linguistic  drift  that  is  responsible  for 


DRIFT  173 

exist,  each  in  its  own  right,  may  sometimes  be  tested 
by  the  method  of  elimination.  If  one  or  other  of  the 
factors  is  missing  and  we  observe  a  slight  diminution  in 
the  corresponding  psychological  reaction  ("hesitation" 
in  our  case),  we  may  conclude  that  the  factor  is  in  other 
uses  genuinely  positive.  The  second  of  our  four  factors 
applies  only  to  the  interrogative  use  of  ivJiom,  the  fourth 
factor  applies  with  more  force  to  the  interrogative  than 
to  the  relative.  We  can  therefore  understand  why  a  sen- 
tence like  7s  he  the  man  whom  you  referred  tof  though 
not  as  idiomatic  as  7s  he  the  man  (that)  you  referred  tof 
(remember  that  it  sins  against  counts  one  and  three), 
is  still  not  as  difficult  to  reconcile  with  our  innate  feel- 
ing for  English  expression  as  Whom  did  you  see?  If 
we  eliminate  the  fourth  factor  from  the  interrogative 
usage,^^  say  in  Whom  are  you  looking  atf  where  the 
vowel  following  whom  relieves  this  word  of  its  phonetic 
weight,  we  can  observe,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  a  lesser 
reluctance  to  use  the  whom.  Who  are  you  looking  at? 
might  even  sound  slightly  offensive  to  ears  that  welcome 
Who  did  you  see? 

We  may  set  up  a  scale  of  ''hesitation  values"  some- 
what after  this  fashion: 

Value  1:  factors  1,  3.  "The  man  whom  I  referred  to." 

Value  2 :  factors  1,  3,  4.     "The  man  whom  they  referred  to." 

Value  3:  factors  1,  2,  3.     "Whom  are  you  looking  at?" 

Value  4:  factors  1,  2,  3,  4.    "Whom  did  you  see?" 


the  rise  of  dialectic  variations.  Each  dialect  continues  the  gen- 
eral drift  of  the  common  parent,  but  has  not  been  able  to  hold 
fast  to  constant  values  for  each  component  of  the  drift.  Devia- 
tions as  to  the  drift  itself,  at  first  slight,  later  cumulative,  are 
therefore  unavoidable. 

17  Most  sentences  beginning  with  interrogative  whom  are  likely 
to  be  followed  by  did  or  does,  do.     Yet  not  all. 


174  LANGUAGE 

We  may  venture  to  surmise  that  while  wJiom  will  ulti- 
mately disappear  from  English  speech,  locutions  of  the 
type  WJiojn  did  you  see?  will  be  obsolete  when  phrases 
like  The  man  whom  I  referred  to  are  still  in  lingering 
use.  It  is  impossible  to  be  certain,  however,  for  we  can 
never  tell  if  we  have  isolated  all  the  determinants  of  a 
drift.  In  our  particular  case  we  have  ignored  what  may 
well  prove  to  be  a  controlling  factor  in  the  history  of 
who  and  whom  in  the  relative  sense.  This  is  the  uncon- 
scious desire  to  leave  these  words  to  their  interrogative 
function  and  to  concentrate  on  that  or  mere  word  order 
as  expressions  of  the  relative  (e.g.,  The  man  that- 1  re- 
ferred to  or  The  man  I  referred  to).  This  drift,  which 
does  not  directly  concern  the  use  of  whom  as  such 
(merely  of  whom  as  a  form  of  who),  may  have  made 
the  relative  who  obsolete  before  the  other  factors  af- 
fecting relative  whom  have  run  their  course.  A  consid- 
eration like  this  is  instructive  because  it  indicates  that 
knowledge  of  the  general  drift  of  a  language  is  insuffi- 
cient to  enable  us  to  see  clearly  what  the  drift  is  head- 
ing for.  We  need  to  know  something  of  the  relative 
potencies  and  speeds  of  the  components  of  the  drift. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  the  particular  drifts 
involved  in  the  use  of  whom  are  of  interest  to  us  not  for 
their  own  sake  but  as  symptoms  of  larger  tendencies  at 
work  in  the  language.  At  least  three  drifts  of  major 
importance  are  discernible.  Each  of  these  has  oper- 
ated for  centuries,  each  is  at  work  in  other  parts  of  our 
linguistic  mechanism,  each  is  almost  certain  to  continue 
for  centuries,  possibly  millennia.  The  first  is  the  fa- 
miliar tendency  to  level  the  distinction  between  the  sub- 
jective and  the  objective,  itself  but  a  late  chapter  in 
the  steady  reduction  of  the  old  Indo-European  system 
of  syntactic  cases.     This  system,  which  is  at  present  best 


DRIFT  175 

preserved  in  Lithuanian,^^  was  already  considerably  re- 
duced in  the  old  Germanic  language  of  which  English, 
Dutch,  German,  Danish,  and  Swedish  are  modern  dia- 
lectic forms.  The  seven  Indo-European  cases  (nomi- 
native, genitive,  dative,  accusative,  ablative,  locative,  in- 
strumental) had  been  already  reduced  to  four  (nomi- 
native, genitive,  dative,  accusative).  We  know  this  from 
a  careful  comparison  of  and  reconstruction  based  on 
the  oldest  Germanic  dialects  of  which  we  still  have  rec- 
ords (Gothic,  Old  Icelandic,  Old  High  German,  Anglo- 
Saxon).  In  the  group  of  West  Germanic  dialects,  for 
the  study  of  which  Old  High  German,  Anglo-Saxon, 
Old  Frisian,  and  Old  Saxon  are  our  oldest  and  most 
valuable  sources,  we  still  have  these  four  cases,  but  the 
phonetic  form  of  the  case  syllables  is  already  greatly 
reduced  and  in  certain  paradigms  particular  cases  have 
coalesced.  The  case  system  is  practically  intact  but  it 
is  evidently  moving  towards  further  disintegration. 
Within  the  Anglo-Saxon  and  early  Middle  English 
period  there  took  place  further  changes  in  the  same 
direction.  The  phonetic  form  of  the  case  syllables  be- 
came still  further  reduced  and  the  distinction  between 
the  accusative  and  the  dative  finally  disappeared.  The 
new  "objective"  is  really  an  amalgam  of  old  accusative 
and  dative  forms;  thus,  Tim,  the  old  dative  (we  still  say 
7  give  him  the  hook,  not  ''abbreviated"  from  I  give 
to  him;  compare  Gothic  imma,  modern  German  ihm), 
took  over  the  functions  of  the  old  accusative  (Anglo- 
Saxon  hine;  compare  Gothic  ina,  Modern  German  ihn) 
and  dative.  The  distinction  between  the  nominative  and 
accusative  was  nibbled  away  by  phonetic  processes  and 

18  Better,  indeed,  than  in  our  oldest  Latin  and  Greek  records. 
The  old  Indo-Iranian  languages  alone  (Sanskrit,  Avestan)  show 
an  equally  or  more  archaic  status  of  the  Indo-European  parent 
tongue  as  regards  case  forms. 


176  LANGUAGE 

morphological  levelings  until  only  certain  pronouns  re- 
tained distinctive  subjective  and  objective  forms. 

In  later  medieval  and  in  modern  times  there  have  been 
comparatively  few  apparent  changes  in  our  case  system 
apart  from  the  gradual  replacement  of  thou — thee  (sin- 
gular) and  subjective  ye — objective  you  (plural)  by  a 
single  undifferentiated  form  you.  All  the  while,  how- 
ever, the  case  system,  such  as  it  is  (subjective-objective, 
really  absolutive,  and  possessive  in  nouns;  subjective, 
objective,  and  possessive  in  certain  pronouns)  has  been 
steadily  weakening  in  psychological  respects.  At  pres- 
ent it  is  more  seriously  undermined  than  most  of  us 
realize.  The  possessive  has  little  vitality  except  in  the 
pronoun  and  in  animate  nouns.  Theoretically  we  can 
still  say  the  moon's  phases  or  a  newspaper's  vogue;  prac- 
tically we  limit  ourselves  pretty  much  to  analytic  locu- 
tions like  the  phases  of  the  moon  and  the  vogue  of  a 
newspaper.  The  drift  is  clearly  toward  the  limitation, 
of  possessive  forms  to  animate  nouns.  All  the  possessive 
pronominal  forms  except  its  and,  in  part,  their  and 
theirs,  are  also  animate.  It  is  significant  that  theirs 
is  hardly  ever  used  in  reference  to  inanimate  nouns,  that 
there  is  some  reluctance  to  so  use  their,  and  that  its  also 
is  beginning  to  give  way  to  of  it.  The  appearance 
of  it  or  the  looks  of  it  is  more  in  the  current  of  the 
language  than  its  appearance.  It  is  curiously  sig- 
nificant that  its  young  (referring  to  an  animal's  cubs) 
is  idiomatically  preferable  to  the  young  of  it.  The  form 
is  only  ostensibly  neuter,  in  feeling  it  is  animate;  psy- 
chologically it  belongs  with  his  children,  not  with  the 
pieces  of  it.  Can  it  be  that  so  common  a  word  as  its  is 
actually  beginning  to  be  difficult?  Is  it  too  doomed  to 
disappear?  It  would  be  rash  to  say  that  it  shows  signs 
of  approaching  obsolescence,  but  that  it  is  steadily  weak- 


DRIFT  177 

ening  is  fairly  clear.^''  lu  any  events  it  is  not  too  much 
to  say  that  there  is  a  strong  drift  towards  the  restriction 
of  the  inflected  possessive  forms  to  animate  nouns  and 
pronouns. 

How  is  it  with  the  alternation  of  subjective  and  ob- 
jective in  the  pronoun?  Granted  that  wJiom  is  a  weak 
sister,  that  the  two  cases  have  been  leveled  in  you  (in  it, 
that,  and  wliat  they  were  never  distinct,  so  far  as  we  can 
tell-®),  and  that  her  as  an  objective  is  a  trifle  weak  be- 
cause of  its  formal  identity  with  the  possessive  her,  is 
there  any  reason  to  doubt  the  vitality  of  such  alterna- 
tions as  /  see  the  man  and  the  man  sees  mef  Surely  the 
distinction  between  subjective  /  and  objective  me,  be- 
tween subjective  he  and  objective  him,  and  correspond- 
ingly for  other  personal  pronouns,  belongs  to  the  very 
core  of  the  language.  We  can  throw  whom  to  the  dogs, 
somehow  make  shift  to  do  without  an  its,  but  to  level  / 
and  me  to  a  single  case — would  that  not  be  to  un- 
English  our  language  beyond  recognition?  There  is  no 
drift  toward  such  horrors  as  Me  see  him  or  /  see  he. 
True,  the  phonetic  disparity  between  /  and  me,  he  and 
Mm,  ive  and  us,  has  been  too  great  for  any  serious  pos- 
sibility of  form  leveling.  It  does  not  follow  that  the 
case  distinction  as  such  is  still  vital.  One  of  the  most  j 
insidious  peculiarities  of  a  linguistic  drift  is  that  where 
it  cannot  destroy  what  lies  in  its  way  it  renders  it  innoc- 
uous by  washing  the  old  significance  out  of  it.  It  turns 
its  very  enemies  to  its  own  uses.  This  brings  us  to  the  ' 
second  of  the  major  drifts,  the  tendency  to  fixed  posi- 

19  Should  its  eventually  drop  out,  it  will  have  had  a  curious 
history.  It  will  have  played  the  role  of  a  stop-gap  between  his 
in  its  non-personal  use  (see  footnote  11,  page  167)  and  the  later 
analytic  of  it. 

20  Except  in  so  far  as  that  has  absorbed  other  functions  than 
such  as  originally  belonged  to  it.  It  was  only  a  nominative- 
accusative  neuter  to  begin  with. 


178  LANGUAGE 

tion  in  the  sentence,  determined  by  the  syntactic  relation 
of  the  word. 

We  need  not  go  into  the  history  of  this  all-important 
drift.  It  is  enough  to  know  that  as  the  inflected  forms 
of  English  became  scantier,  as  the  syntactic  relations 
were  more  and  more  inadequately  expressed  by  the  forms 
of  the  words  themselves,  position  in  the  sentence  gradu- 
ally took  over  functions  originally  foreign  to  it.  The 
man  in  the  man  sees  the  dog  is  subjective;  in  the  dog 
sees  the  man,  objective.  Strictly  parallel  to  these  sen- 
tences are  he  sees  the  dog  and  the  dog  sees  him.  Are 
the  subjective  value  of  he  and  the  objective  value  of 
him  entirely,  or  even  mainly,  dependent  on  the  difference 
of  form?  I  doubt  it.  We  could  hold  to  such  a  view 
if  it  were  possible  to  say  the  dog  sees  he  or  him  sees  the 
dog.  It  was  once  possible  to  say  such  things,  but  we 
have  lost  the  power.  In  other  words,  at  least  part  of 
the  case  feeling  in  he  and  him  is  to  be  credited  to  their 
position  before  or  after  the  verb.  May  it  not  be,  then, 
that  he  and  hi^n,  we  and  lis,  are  not  so  much  subjective 
and  objective  forms  as  pre-verbal  and  post-verbal  ^^ 
forms,  very  much  as  my  and  mijie  are  now  pre-nominal 
and  post-nominal  forms  of  the  possessive  (my  father  but 
father  mine;  it  is  my  hook  but  the  hook  is  mine)  ?  That 
this  interpretation  corresponds  to  the  actual  drift  of 
the  English  language  is  again  indicated  by  the  language 
of  the  folk.  The  folk  says  it  is  me,  not  it  is  I,  which  is 
"correct"  but  just  as  falsely  so  as  the  whom  did  you 
see?  that  we  have  analyzed.    I'm  the  one,  it's  me;  we're 

21  Aside  from  the  interrogative:  am  I?  is  he?  Emphasis  counts 
for  something.  There  is  a  strong  tendency  for  the  old  "objec- 
tive" forms  to  bear  a  stronger  stress  than  the  "subjective"  forms. 
This  is  why  the  stress  in  locutions  like  He  didn't  go,  did  he?  and 
isn't  he?  is  thrown  back  on  the  verb;  it  is  not  a  matter  of  logical 
emphasis. 


DRIFT  179 

the  ones,  it's  us  that  will  win  out — such  are  the  live 
parallelisms  in  English  to-day.  There  is  little  doubt 
that  it  is  I  will  one  day  be  as  impossible  in  English  as 
c'est  je,  for  c'est  moi,  is  now  in  French. 

How  differently  our  /;  me  feels  than  in  Chaucer's  day 
is  shown  by  the  Chaucerian  it  am  I.  Here  the  dis- 
tinctively subjective  aspect  of  the  /  was  enough  to  influ- 
ence the  form  of  the  preceding  verb  in  spite  of  the  intro- 
ductory it;  Chaucer's  locution  clearly  felt  more  like  a 
Latin  sum  ego  than  a  modern  it  is  I  or  colloquial  it  is  me. 
We  have  a  curious  bit  of  further  evidence  to  prove  that 
the  English  personal  pronouns  have  lost  some  share  of 
their  original  syntactic  force.  Were  he  and  she  sub- 
jective forms  pure  and  simple,  were  they  not  striving, 
so  to  speak,  to  become  caseless  absolutives,  like  man  or 
any  other  noun,  we  should  not  have  been  able  to  coin 
such  compounds  as  he-goat  and  she-goat,  words  that  are 
psychologically  analogous  to  hull-moose  and  mother-hear. 
Again,  in  inquiring  about  a  new-born  baby,  we  ask  Is  it 
a  he  or  a  she?  quite  as  though  he  and  she  were  the  equiv- 
alents of  male  and  female  or  hoy  and  girl.  All  in  all, 
we  may  conclude  that  our  English  case  system  is  weaker 
than  it  looks  and  that,  in  one  way  or  another,  it  is  des- 
tined to  get  itself  reduced  to  an  absolutive  (caseless) 
form  for  all  nouns  and  pronouns  but  those  that  are 
animate.  Animate  nouns  and  pronouns  are  sure  to  have 
distinctive  possessive  forms  for  an  indefinitely  long 
period. 

Meanwhile  observe  that  the  old  alignment  of  case 
forms  is  being  invaded  by  two  new  categories — a  posi- 
tional category  (pre-verbal,  post- verbal)  and  a  clas- 
sificatory  category  (animate,  inanimate).  The  facts 
that  in  the  possessive  animate  nouns  and  pronouns  are 
destined  to  be  more  and  more   sharply  distinguished 


180  LANGUAGE 

from  inanimate  nouns  and  pronouns  {the  man's,  but 
of  the  house;  his,  but  of  it)  and  that,  on  the  whole,  it 
is  only  animate  pronouns  that  distinguish  pre-verbal 
and  post-verbal  forms  "^  are  of  the  greatest  theoretical 
interest.  They  show  that,  however  the  language  strive 
for  a  more  and  more  analytic  form,  it  is  by  no  means 
manifesting  a  drift  toward  the  expression  of  "pure" 
relational  concepts  in  the  Indo-Chinese  manner.^^  The 
insistence  on  the  concreteness  of  the  relational  concepts 
is  clearly  stronger  than  the  destructive  power  of  the 
most  sweeping  and  persistent  drifts  that  we  know  of  in 
the  history  and  prehistory  of  our  language. 

The  drift  toward  the  abolition  of  most  case  distinc- 
tions and  the  correlative  drift  toward  position  as  an 
all-important  grammatical  method  ave  accompanied, 
in  a  sense  dominated,  by  the  last  of  the  three  major 
drifts  that  I  have  referred  to.  This  is  the  drift  toward 
the  invariable  word.  In  analyzing  the  "whom"  sen- 
tence I  pointed  out  that  the  rhetorical  emphasis  natural 
to  an  interrogative  pronoun  lost  something  by  its  form 
variability  {who,  whose,  whom).  This  striving  for  a 
simple,  unnuanced  correspondence  between  idea  and 
word,  as  invariable  as  may  be,  is  very  strong  in  Eng- 
lish. It  accounts  for  a  number  of  tendencies  which  at 
first  sight  seem  unconnected.  Certain  well-established 
forms,  like  the  present  third  person  singular  -s  of 
works  or  the  plural  -s  of  hooks,  have  resisted  the 
drift  to  invariable  words,  possibly  because  they  sym- 
bolize certain  stronger  form  cravings  that  we  do 
not  yet  fully  understand.  It  is  interesting  to  note 
that   derivations   that   get   away   sufficiently   from   the 

22  They:  them  as  an  inanimate  group  may  be  looked  upon  as  a 
kind  of  borrowing  from  the  animate,  to  which,  in  feeling,  it  more 
properly  belongs. 

23  See  page  155. 


DRIFT  181 

concrete  notion  of  the  radical  word  to  exist  as  inde- 
pendent conceptual  centers  are  not  affected  by  this  elu- 
sive drift.  As  soon  as  the  derivation  runs  danger  of 
being  felt  as  a  mere  nuancing  of,  a  finicky  play  on,  the 
primary  concept,  it  tends  to  be  absorbed  by  the  radical 
word,  to  disappear  as  such.  English  words  crave  spaces 
between  them,  they  do  not  like  to  huddle  in  clusters 
of  slightly  divergent  centers  of  meaning,  each  edging 
a  little  away  from  the  rest.  Goodness,  a  noun  of  qual- 
ity, almost  a  noun  of  relation,  that  takes  its  cue  from 
the  concrete  idea  of  "good"  without  necessarily  predi- 
cating that  quality  (e.g.,  I  do  not  think  much  of  his 
goodness)  is  sufficiently  spaced  from  good  itself  not  to 
need  fear  absorption.  Similarly,  unable  can  hold  its 
own  against  able  because  it  destroys  the  latter 's  sphere 
of  influence ;  unable  is  psychologically  as  distinct  from 
able  as  is  blundering  or  stupid.  It  is  different  with 
adverbs  in  -ly.  These  lean  too  heavily  on  their  adjec- 
tives to  have  the  kind  of  vitality  that  English  demands 
of  its  words.  Do  it  quickly!  drags  psychologically. 
The  nuance  expressed  by  quickly  is  too  close  to  that  of 
quick,  their  circles  of  concreteness  are  too  nearly  the 
same,  for  the  two  words  to  feel  comfortable  together. 
The  adverbs  in  -ly  are  likely  to  go  to  the  wall  in  the  not 
too  distant  future  for  this  very  reason  and  in  face  of 
their  obvious  usefulness.  Another  instance  of  the  sac- 
rifice of  highly  useful  forms  to  this  impatience  of 
nuancing  is  the  group  whence,  whither,  hence,  hither, 
thence,  thither.  They  could  not  persist  in  live  usage 
because  they  impinged  too  solidly  upon  the  circles  of 
meaning  represented  by  the  words  where,  here  and  there. 
In  saying  whither  we  feel  too  keenly  that  we  repeat  all 
of  where.  That  we  add  to  where  an  important  nuance 
of  direction  irritates  rather  than  satisfies.     We  prefer 


182  LANGUAGE 

to  merge  the  static  and  the  directive  {WJiere  do  you  live? 
like  Where  are  you  going?)  or,  if  need  be,  to  overdo 
a  little  the  concept  of  direction  ( Where  are  you  running 
to'i). 

Now  it  is  highly  symptomatic  of  the  nature  of  the 
drift  away  from  word  clusters  that  we  do  not  object  to 
nuances  as  such,  we  object  to  having  the  nuances  for- 
mally earmarked  for  us.  As  a  matter  of  fact  our  vo- 
cabulary is  rich  in  near-synonyms  and  in  groups  of 
words  that  are  psychologically  near  relatives,  but  these 
near-synonyms  and  these  groups  do  not  hang  together 
by  reason  of  etymology.  "We  are  satisfied  with  believe 
and  credible  just  because  they  keep  aloof  from  each 
other.  Good  and  ivell  go  better  together  than  quick  and 
quickly.  The  English  vocabulary  is  a  rich  medley  be- 
cause each  English  word  wants  its  own  castle.  Has 
English  long  been  peculiarly  receptive  to  foreign  words 
because  it  craves  the  staking  out  of  as  many  word  areas 
as  possible,  or,  conversely,  has  the  mechanical  imposi- 
tion of  a  flood  of  French  and  Latin  loan-words,  un- 
rooted in  our  earlier  tradition,  so  dulled  our  feeling  for 
the  possibilities  of  our  native  resources  that  we  are 
allowing  these  to  shrink  by  default?  I  suspect  that 
both  propositions  are  true.  Each  feeds  on  the  other. 
I  do  not  think  it  likely,  however,  that  the  borrowings 
in  English  have  been  as  mechanical  and  external  a 
process  as  they  are  generally  represented  to  have  been. 
There  was  something  about  the  English  drift  as  early 
as  the  period  following  the  Norman  Conquest  that  wel- 
comed the  new  words.  They  were  a  compensation  for 
something  that  was  weakening  within. 


VIII 

LANGUAGE  AS  A  HISTORICAL  PRODUCT: 
PHONETIC  LAW 

I  HAVE  preferred  to  take  up  in  some  detail  the  analysis 
of  our  hesitation  in  using  a  locution  like  "Whom  did 
you  see?"  and  to  point  to  some  of  the  English  drifts, 
particular  and  general,  that  are  implied  by  this  hesi- 
tation than  to  discuss  linguistic  change  in  the  abstract. 
What  is  true  of  the  particular  idiom  that  we  started 
with  is  true  of  everything  else  in  language.  Nothing 
is  perfectly  static.  Every  word,  every  grammatical  ele- 
ment, every  locution,  every  sound  and  accent  is  a  slowly 
changing  configuration,  molded  by  the  invisible  and  im- 
personal drift  that  is  the  life  of  language.  The  evidence 
is  overwhelming  that  this  drift  has  a  certain  consistent 
direction.  Its  speed  varies  enormously  according  to  cir- 
cumstances that  it  is  not  always  easy  to  define.  We  have 
already  seen  that  Lithuanian  is  to-day  nearer  its  Indo- 
European  prototype  than  was  the  hypothetical  Germanic 
mother-tongue  five  hundred  or  a  thousand  years  before 
Christ.  German  has  moved  more  slowly  than  English; 
in  some  respects  it  stands  roughly  midway  between  Eng- 
lish and  Anglo-Saxon,  in  others  it  has  of  course  diverged 
from  the  Anglo-Saxon  line.  When  I  pointed  out  in  the 
preceding  chapter  that  dialects  formed  because  a  lan- 
guage broken  up  into  local  segments  could  not  move 
along  the  same  drift  in  all  of  these  segments,  I  meant  of 
course  that  it  could  not  move  along  identically  the  same 
drift.     The  general  drift  of  a  language  has  its  depthSt 

183 


184  LANGUAGE 

At  the  surface  the  current  is  relatively  fast.  In  certain 
features  dialects  drift  apart  rapidly.  By  that  very  fact 
these  features  betray  themselves  as  less  fundamental  to 
the  genius  of  the  language  than  the  more  slowly  modi- 
fiable features  in  which  the  dialects  keep  together  long 
after  they  have  grown  to  be  mutually  alien  forms  of 
speech.  But  this  is  not  all.  The  momentum  of  the 
more  fundamental,  the  pre-dialectic,  drift  is  often  such 
that  languages  long  disconnected  will  pass  through  the 
same  or  strikingly  similar  phases.  In  many  such  cases 
it  is  perfectly  clear  that  there  could  have  been  no  dia- 
lectic interinfluencing. 

These  parallelisms  in  drift  may  operate  in  the  phonetic 
as  well  as  in  the  morphological  sphere,  or  they  may 
affect  both  at  the  same  time.  Here  is  an  interesting 
example.  The  English  type  of  plural  represented  by 
foot:  feet,  mouse:  mice  is  strictly  parallel  to  the  Ger- 
man Fuss :  Filsse,  Maus :  Mliuse.  One  would  be  inclined 
to  surmise  that  these  dialectic  forms  go  back  to  old 
Germanic  or  West-Germanic  alternations  of  the  same 
type.  But  the  documentary  evidence  shows  conclusively 
that  there  could  have  been  no  plurals  of  this  type  in 
primitive  Germanic.  There  is  no  trace  of  such  vocalic 
mutation  ("umlaut")  in  Gothic,  our  most  archaic  Ger- 
manic language.  More  significant  still  is  the  fact  that 
it  does  not  appear  in  our  oldest  Old  High  German  texts 
and  begins  to  develop  only  at  the  very  end  of  the  Old 
High  German  period  (circa  1000  a.d.).  In  the  Middle 
High  German  period  the  mutation  was  carried  through 
in  all  dialects.  The  typical  Old  High  German  forms 
are  singular  fuoss,  plural  fuossi;  ^  singular  mus,  plural 

1 1  have  cliangcd  the  Old  and  Middle  High  German  orthography 
slightly  in  order  to  bring  it  into  accord  with  modern  usage.  These 
purely  orthographical  changes  are  immaterial.  The  u  of  mus  is 
a  long  vowel,  very  nearly  like  the  oo  of  English  moose. 


PHONETIC  LAW  185 

musi.  The  corresponding  Middle  High  German  forms 
are  fuoss,  fiiesse;  mus,  miise.  Modern  German  Fuss: 
Filsse,  Maus:  Mduse  are  the  regular  developments  of 
these  medieval  forms.  Turning  to  Anglo-Saxon,  we 
find  that  our  modern  English  forms  correspond  to  fot, 
fet;  mus,  mysr  These  forms  are  already  in  use  in  the 
earliest  English  monuments  that  we  possess,  dating  from 
the  eighth  century,  and  thus  antedate  the  Middle  High 
German  forms  by  three  hundred  years  or  more.  In 
other  words,  on  this  particular  point  it  took  German 
at  least  three  hundred  years  to  catch  up  with  a  phonetic- 
morphological  drift  ^  that  had  long  been  under  way  in 
English.  The  mere  fact  that  the  affected  vowels  of 
related  words  (Old  High  German  uo,  Anglo-Saxon  o) 
are  not  always  the  same  shows  that  the  affection  took 
place  at  different  periods  in  German  and  English.* 
There  was  evidently  some  general  tendency  or  group 
of  tendencies  at  work  in  early  Germanic,  long  before 
English  and  German  had  developed  as  such,  that  eventu- 
ally drove  both  of  these  dialects  along  closely  parallel 
paths. 

How  did  such  strikingly  individual  alternations  as 
fot:  fet,  fuoss:  fiiesse  develop?    We  have  now  reached 

2  The  vowels  of  these  four  words  are  long ;  o  as  in  rode,  e  like 
o  of  fade,  u  like  oo  of  brood,  y  like  German  il. 

3  Or  rather  stage  in  a  drift. 

4  Anglo-Saxon  fet  is  "unrounded"  from  an  older  fot,  which  is 
phonetically  related  to  fot  precisely  as  is  mys  (i.e.,  miis)  to  mus. 
Middle  High  German  ue  (Modern  German  it)  did  not  develop  from 
an  "umlauted"  prototype  of  Old  High  German  uo  and  Anglo- 
Saxon  0,  but  was  based  directly  on  the  dialectic  uo.  The  unaf- 
fected prototype  was  long  o.  Had  this  been  affected  in  the 
earliest  Germanic  or  West-Germanic  period,  we  should  have  had 
a  pre-German  alternation  fot:  foti;  this  older  o  could  not  well 
have  resulted  in  He.  Fortunately  we  do  not  need  inferential  evi- 
dence in  this  case,  yet  inferential  comparative  methods,  if  handled 
with  care,  may  be  exceedingly  useful.  They  are  indeed  indis- 
pensable to  the  historian  of  language. 


186  LANGUAGE 

what  is  probably  the  most  central  problem  in  linguistic 
history,  gradual  phonetic  change.  "Phonetic  laws" 
make  up  a  large  and  fundamental  share  of  the  subject- 
matter  of  linguistics.  Their  influence  reaches  far  be- 
yond the  proper  sphere  of  phonetics  and  invades  that 
of  morphology,  as  we  shall  see.  A  drift  that  begins  as 
a  slight  phonetic  readjustment  or  unsettlement  may  in 
the  course  of  millennia  bring  about  the  most  profound 
structural  changes.  The  mere  fact,  for  instance,  that 
there  is  a  growing  tendency  to  throw  the  stress  auto- 
matically on  the  first  syllable  of  a  word  may  eventually 
change  the  fundamental  type  of  the  language,  reducing 
its  final  syllables  to  zero  and  driving  it  to  the  use  of 
more  and  more  analytical  or  symbolic  ^  methods.  The 
English  phonetic  laws  involved  in  the  rise  of  the  words 
foot,  feet,  mouse  and  mice  from  their  early  West-Ger- 
manic prototypes  fot,  foti,  mus,  musi^  may  be  briefly 
summarized  as  follows: 

1.  In  foti  "feet"  the  long  o  was  colored  by  the  fol- 
lowing *  to  long  0,  that  is,  o  kept  its  lip-rounded  quality 
and  its  middle  height  of  tongue  position  but  anticipated 
the  front  tongue  position  of  the  i;  o  is  the  resulting  com- 
promise. This  assimilatory  change  was  regular,  i.e., 
every  accented  long  o  followed  by  an  i  in  the  following 
syllable  automatically  developed  to  long  o;  hence  totlii 
*' teeth"  became  totJii,  fodian  "to  feed"  became  fodian. 
At  first  there  is  no  doubt  the  alternation  between  o  and 
0  was  not  felt  as  intrinsically  significant.  It  could  only 
have  been  an  unconscious  mechanical  adjustment  such  as 
may  be  observed  in  the  speech  of  many  to-day  who  mod- 
ify the  "oo"  sound  of  words  like  you  and  feiv  in  the 

5  See  page  13.3. 

6  Primitive  Germanic  fot{s),fotiz,  mus,m.vsiz;  Indo-European 
pods,podes,  mus,inuses.  The  vowels  of  the  first  syllables  are  all 
long. 


PHONETIC  LAW  187 

direction  of  German  ii  without,  however,  actually  de- 
parting far  enough  from  the  "oo"  vowel  to  prevent  their 
acceptance  of  wlio  and  you  as  satisfactory  rhyming 
words.  Later  on  the  quality  of  the  o  vowel  must  have 
departed  widely  enough  from  that  of  o  to  enable  o  to 
rise  in  consciousness  ^  as  a  neatly  distinct  vowel.  As 
soon  as  this  happened,  the  expression  of  plurality  in 
foti,  tdtlii,  and  analogous  words  became  symbolic  and 
fusional,  not  merely  fusional. 

2.  In  7nusi  "mice"  the  long  u  was  colored  by  the 
following  i  to  long  il.  This  change  also  was  regular; 
liisi  "lice"  became  lilsi,  kui  "cows"  became  kili  (later 
simplified  to  kit;  still  preserved  as  ki-  in  kine),  fulian 
"to  make  foul"  became  fulian  (still  preserved  as  -iile  in 
defile).  The  psychology  of  this  phonetic  law  is  entirely 
analogous  to  that  of  1. 

3.  The  old  drift  toward  reducing  final  syllables,  a 
rhythmic  consequence  of  the  strong  Germanic  stress  on 
the  first  syllable,  now  manifested  itself.  The  final  -*, 
originally  an  important  functional  element,  had  long 
lost  a  great  share  of  its  value,  transferred  as  that  was 
to  the  symbolic  vowel  change  {o:  o).  It  had  little  power 
of  resistance,  therefore,  to  the  drift.  It  became  dulled 
to  a  colorless  -e;  foti  became  fote. 

4.  The  weak  -e  finally  disappeared.  Probably  the 
forms  fijie  and  fot  long  coexisted  as  prosodic  variants 
according  to  the  rhythmic  requirements  of  the  sentence, 
very  much  as  Fiisse  and  Fiiss'  now  coexist  in  German. 

5.  The  0  of  fot  became  "unrounded"  to  long  e  (our 
present  a  of  fade).  The  alternation  of  fot:  foti,  transi- 
tionally  fot:  foti,  fote,  fot,  now  appears  as  fot:  fet. 
Analogously,  toth  appears  as  tetli,  fodian  as  fedian,  later 

7  Or  in  that  unconscious  sound  patterning  which  is  ever  on  the 
point  of  becoming  conscious.     See  page  57. 


188  LANGUAGE 

fedan.  The  new  long  <?-vowel  "fell  together"  with  the 
older  e-  vowel  already  existent  (e.g.,  Iter  "here,"  he 
"he").  Henceforward  the  two  are  merged  and  their 
later  history  is  in  common.  Thus  our  present  lie  has 
the  same  vowel  as  feet,  teetli,  and  feed.  In  other  words, 
the  old  sound  pattern  o,  e,  after  an  interim  of  o,  o,  e, 
reappeared  as  o,  e,  except  that  now  the  e  had  greater 
"weight"  than  before. 

6.  Fot:  fet,  mus:  7mls  (written  mys)  are  the  typical 
forms  of  Anglo-Saxon  literature.  At  the  very  end  of 
the  Anglo-Saxon  period,  say  about  1050  to  1100  a.d., 
the  a,  whether  long  or  short,  became  unrounded  to  i. 
Mys  was  then  pronounced  mis  with  long  i  ( rhyming  with 
present  niece).  The  change  is  analogous  to  5,  but  takes 
place  several  centuries  later. 

7.  In  Chaucer's  day  (circa  1350-1400  a.d.)  the  forms 
were  still  fot:  fet  (written  foot,  feet)  and  mus:  mis 
(written  very  variably,  but  mous,  myse  are  typical). 
About  1500  all  the  long  i-vowels,  whether  original  (as 
in  write,  ride,  wine)  or  unrounded  from  Anglo-Saxon 
it  (as  in  hide,  hride,  mice,  defile),  became  diphthongized 
to  ei  (i.e.,  e  of  met  -\-  short  i).  Shakespeare  pronounced 
mice  as  meis  (almost  the  same  as  the  present  Cockney 
pronunciation  of  mace). 

8.  About  the  same  time  the  long  u-  vowels  were  diph- 
thongized to  ou  (i.e.,  0  of  present  Scotch  not  -j-  w  of  full). 
The  Chaucerian  mus:  mis  now  appears  as  the  Shake- 
spearean mous:  meis.  This  change  may  have  mani- 
fested itself  somewhat  later  than  7 ;  all  English  dialects 
have  diphthongized  old  Germanic  long  i,^  but  the  long 
undiphthongized  u  is  still  preserved  in  Lowland  Scotch, 
in  which  house  and  mouse  rhyme  with  our  loose.  7 
and  8  are  analogous  developments,  as  were  5  and  6;  8 

8  As  have  most  Dutch  and  German  dialects. 


PHONETIC  LAW  189 

apparently  lags  behind  7  as  6,  centuries  earlier,  lagged 
behind  7. 

9.  Some  time  before  1550  the  long  e  of  fet  (written 
feet)  took  the  position  that  had  been  vacated  by  the  old 
long  i,  now  diphthongized  (see  7),  i.e.,  e  took  the  higher 
tongue  position  of  i.  Our  (and  Shakespeare's)  "long 
e"  is,  then,  phonetically  the  same  as  the  old  long  i.  Feet 
now  rhymed  with  the  old  ivrite  and  the  present  heat. 

10.  About  the  same  time  the  long  o  of  fot  (written 
foot)  took  the  position  that  had  been  vacated  by  the  old 
long  w,  now  diphthongized  (see  8),  i.e.,  o  took  the  higher 
tongue  position  of  w.  Our  (and  Shakespeare's)  "long 
00  "  is  phonetically  the  same  as  the  old  long  w.  Foot  now 
rhymed  with  the  old  out  and  the  present  hoot.  To  sum- 
marize 7  to  10,  Shakespeare  pronounced  meis,  mous,  fit, 
fut,  of  which  meis  and  mous  would  affect  our  ears  as  a 
rather  "mincing"  rendering  of  our  present  mice  and 
mouse,  fit  would  sound  practically  identical  with  (but 
probably  a  bit  more  "drawled"  than)  our  present  feet, 
while  foot,  rhyming  with  hoot,  would  now  be  set  down 
as  "broad  Scotch." 

11.  Gradually  the  first  vowel  of  the  diphthong  in 
mice  (see  7)  was  retracted  and  lowered  in  position.  The 
resulting  diphthong  now  varies  in  different  English  dia- 
lects, but  ai  (i.e.,  a  of  father,  but  shorter,  -\-  short  i) 
may  be  taken  as  a  fairly  accurate  rendering  of  its  aver- 
age quality.^  What  we  now  call  the  "long  i"  (of  words 
like  ride,  hite,  mice)  is,  of  course,  an  a^-diphthong. 
Mice  is  now  pronounced  mais. 

12.  Analogously  to  11,  the  first  vowel  of  the  diph- 
thong in  mouse  (see  8)  was  unrounded  and  lowered  in 
position.  The  resulting  diphthong  may  be  phonetically 
rendered  au,  though  it  too  varies  considerably  accord- 

9  At  least  in  America. 


190  LANGUAGE 

ing  to  dialect.     Mouse,  then,  is  now  pronounced  mans. 
13.     The  vowel  of  foot   (see  10)   became  "open"  in 
quality  and  shorter  in  quantity,  i.e.,  it  fell  together  with 
the  old  short   H-vowel   of  words  like  full,  icolf,   wool. 
This  change  has  taken  place  in  a  number  of  words  with 
an  originally  long  u   (Chaucerian  long  close  o),  such 
as  forsook,  liook,  book,  look,  rook,  shook,  all  of  which 
formerly  had  the  vowel  of  hoot.     The  older  vowel,  how- 
ever, is  still  preserved  in  most  words  of  this  class,  such 
as  fool,  moon,  spool,  stoop.     It  is  highly  significant  of 
the  nature  of  the  slow  spread  of  a  "phonetic  law"  that 
there  is  local  vacillation  at  present  in  several  words. 
One  hears  roof,  soot,  and  Jwop,  for  instance,  both  with 
the  "long"  vowel  of  hoot  and  the  "short"  of  foot.    It 
is  impossible  now,  in  other  words,  to  state  in  a  definitive 
manner  what  is  the  "phonetic  law"  that  regulated  the 
change  of  the  older  foot   (rhyming  with  hoot)    to  the 
present  foot.     We  know  that  there   is   a   strong   drift 
towards  the  short,  open  vowel  of  foot,  but  whether  or 
not  all  the  old  "long  oo"  words  will  eventually  be  af- 
fected we  cannot  presume  to  say.     If  they  all,  or  prac- 
tically all,  are  taken  by  the  drift,  phonetic  law  13  will 
be  as  "regular,"  as  sweeping,  as  most  of  the  twelve  that 
have  preceded  it.    If  not,  it  may  eventually  be  possible, 
if  past  experience  is  a  safe  guide,  to  show  that  the  modi- 
fied words  form  a  natural  phonetic  group,  that  is,  that 
the  "law"  will  have  operated  under  certain  definable 
limiting  conditions,  e.g.,  that  all  words  ending  in  a  voice- 
less consonant  (such  as  p,  t,  k,  f)   were  affected   (e.g., 
Jioof,  foot,  look,  roof),  but  that  all  words  ending  in  the 
oo-vowel  or  in  a  voiced  consonant  remained  unaffected 
(e.g.,  do,  food,  move,  fool).     Whatever  the  upshot,  we 
may  be   reasonably   certain   that  when   the  "phonetic 
law"  has  run  its  course,  the  distribution  of  "long"  and 


PHONETIC  LAW  191 

"short"  vowels  in  the  old  oo-words  will  not  seem  quite 
as  erratic  as  at  the  present  transitional  moment.^^  We 
learn,  incidentally,  the  fundamental  fact  that  phonetic 
laws  do  not  work  with  spontaneous  automatism,  that 
they  are  simply  a  formula  for  a  consummated  drift  that 
sets  in  at  a  psychologically  exposed  point  and  gradually 
worms  its  way  through  a  gamut  of  phonetically 
analogous  forms. 

It  will  be  instructive  to  set  down  a  table  of  form 
sequences,  a  kind  of  gross  history  of  the  words  foot,  feet, 
mouse,  mice  for  the  last  1500  years :  ^^ 

I.  fot:  foti;  mus:  musi  (West  Germanic) 

XL  fot:  foti;  mus:  miisi 

III.  fot:  fote;  mus:  milse 

IV.  fot:  fot;  mus:  mils 

V.  fot:  fet;  mus:  mils  (Anglo-Saxon) 

VI.  fot:  fet;  mus:  mis  (Chaucer) 

VII.  fot:  fet;  mous:  meis 

VIII.  fut  (rhymes  with  boot)  :  fit;  mous:  meis  (Shakespeare) 

IX.  fut:  fit;  maus:  mais 

X.  fut   (rhymes  with  put)  :  fit;  maus:  mais   (English  of 
1900) 

It  will  not  be  necessary  to  list  the  phonetic  laws  that 
gradually  differentiated  the  modern  German  equiva- 
lents of  the  original  West  Germanic  forms  from  their 
English  cognates.  The  following  table  gives  a  rough 
idea  of  the  form  sequences  in  German :  " 

9a  It  is  possible  that  other  than  purely  phonetic  factors  are  also 
at  work  in  the  history  of  these  vowels. 

10  The  orthography  is  roughly  phonetic.  Pronounce  all  ac- 
cented vowels  long  except  where  otherwise  indicated,  unaccented 
vowels  short;  give  continental  values  to  vowels,  not  present  Eng- 
lish  ones. 

11  After  I.  the  numbers  are  not  meant  to  correspond  chronologi- 
cally to  those  of  the  English  table.  The  orthography  is  again 
roughly  phonetic. 


192  LANGUAGE 

I.  fot:  foti;  mus:  musi   (West  Germanic) 

II.  foss :  ^^  fossi;  mus :  musi 

III.  fuoss:  fuossi;  mus:  musi  (Old  High  German) 

IV.  fuoss:  fiiessi;  mus:  milsi 

V.  fuoss:  f Hesse;  mus:  miise  (Middle  High  German) 

VI.  fuoss:  f  Hesse  J  mus:  miise '^^ 

VII.  fuos:  fiiese;  mus:  miize 

VIII.  fuos:  fiiese;  mous:  moiize 

IX.  fus:  fiise;  mous:  moiize   (Luther) 

X.  fus:  fiise;  maus:  moize  (German  of  1900) 

We  cannot  even  begin  to  ferret  out  and  discuss  all 
the  psychological  problems  that  are  concealed  behind 
these  bland  tables.  Their  general  parallelism  is  obvious. 
Indeed  we  might  say  that  to-day  the  English  and  Ger- 
man forms  resemble  each  other  more  than  does  either 
set  the  West  Germanic  prototypes  from  which  each  is 
independently  derived.  Each  table  illustrates  the  tend- 
ency to  reduction  of  unaccented  syllables,  the  vocalic 
modification  of  the  radical  element  under  the  influence 
of  the  following  vowel,  the  rise  in  tongue  position  of  the 
long  middle  vowels  (English  o  to  u,  e  to  i;  German  o  to 
uo  to  u,  lie  to  ii),  the  diphthongizing  of  the  old  high 
vowels  (English  i  to  ei  to  ai;  English  and  German  u  to 

12  I  use  ss  to  indicate  a  peculiar  long,  voiceless  s-sound  that 
was  etymologically  and  phonetically  distinct  from  the  old  Ger- 
manic s.  It  always  goes  back  to  an  old  t.  In  the  old  sources  it 
is  generally  written  as  a  variant  of  z,  though  it  is  not  to  be  con- 
fused with  the  modern  German  z  {=:  ts) .  It  was  probably  a 
dental    (lisped)    s. 

13  Z  is  to  be  understood  as  French  or  English  z,  not  in  its 
German  use.  Strictly  speaking,  this  "z"  (intervocalic  -s-)  was 
not  voiced  but  was  a  soft  voiceless  sound,  a  sibilant  intermediate 
between  our  s  and  z.  In  modern  North  German  it  has  become 
voiced  to  z.  It  is  important  not  to  confouna  this  s  —  z  with  the 
voiceless  intervocalic  s  that  soon  arose  from  the  older  lisped  ss. 
In  Modern  German  (aside  from  certain  dialects),  old  s  and  ss  are 
not  now  differentiated  when  final  {}[aus  and  Fuss  have  identical 
sibilants),  but  can  still  be  distinguished  as  voiced  and  voice- 
less s  between  vowels  (Mduse  and  Fiisse). 


PHONETIC  LAW  193 

ou  to  au;  German  ii  to  oil  to  oi).  These  dialectic  par- 
allels cannot  be  accidental.  They  are  rooted  in  a  com- 
mon, pre-dialectic  drift. 

Phonetic  changes  are  "regular."  All  but  one  (Eng- 
lish table,  X.),  and  that  as  yet  uncompleted,  of  the 
particular  phonetic  laws  represented  in  our  tables  affect 
all  examples  of  the  sound  in  question  or,  if  the  phonetic 
change  is  conditional,  all  examples  of  the  same  sound 
that  are  analogously  circumstanced."  An  example  of 
the  first  type  of  change  is  the  passage  in  English  of  all 
old  long  i-vowels  to  diphthongal  ai  via  ei.  The  passage 
could  hardly  have  been  sudden  or  automatic,  but  it  was 
rapid  enough  to  prevent  an  irregularity  of  development 
due  to  cross  drifts.  The  second  type  of  change  is  illus- 
trated in  the  development  of  Anglo-Saxon  long  o  to  long 
e,  via  0,  under  the  influence  of  a  following  i.  In  the 
first  case  we  may  say  that  au  mechanically  replaced  long 
«,  in  the  second  that  the  old  long  o  "split"  into  two 
sounds — long  o,  eventually  u,  and  long  e,  eventually  i. 
The  former  type  of  change  did  no  violence  to  the  old 
phonetic  pattern,  the  formal  distribution  of  sounds  into 
groups;  the  latter  type  rearranged  the  pattern  some- 
what. If  neither  of  the  two  sounds  into  which  an  old 
one  "splits"  is  a  new  sound,  it  means  that  there  has 
been  a  phonetic  leveling,  that  two  groups  of  words,  each 
with  a  distinct  sound  or  sound  combination,  have  fallen 
together  into  one  group.  This  kind  of  leveling  is  quite 
frequent  in  the  history  of  language.     In  English,  for 

14  In  practice  phonetic  laws  have  their  exceptions,  but  more 
Intensive  study  almost  invariably  shows  that  these  exceptions 
are  more  apparent  than  real.  They  are  generally  due  to  the  dis- 
turbing influence  of  morphological  groupings  or  to  special  psycho- 
logical reasons  which  inhibit  the  normal  progress  of  the  phonetic 
drift.  It  is  remarkable  with  how  few  exceptions  one  need  operate 
in  linguistic  history,  aside  from  "analogical  leveling"  (morpho- 
logical replacement). 


194  LANGUAGE 

instance,  we  have  seen  that  all  the  old  long  w-vowels, 
after  they  had  become  unrounded,  were  indistinguishable 
from  the  mass  of  long  i-vowels.  This  meant  that  the 
long  i-vowel  became  a  more  heavily  weighted  point  of 
the  phonetic  pattern  than  before.  It  is  curious  to  ob- 
serve how  often  languages  have  striven  to  drive  orig- 
inally distinct  sounds  into  certain  favorite  positions, 
regardless  of  resulting  confusions.^^  In  Modern  Greek, 
for  instance,  the  vowel  i  is  the  historical  resultant  of  no 
less  than  ten  etymologically  distinct  vowels  (long  and 
short)  and  diphthongs  of  the  classical  speech  of  Athens. 
There  is,  then,  good  evidence  to  show  that  there  are 
general  phonetic  drifts  toward  particular  sounds. 

More  often  the  phonetic  drift  is  of  a  more  general 
character.  It  is  not  so  much  a  movement  toward  a  par- 
ticular set  of  sounds  as  toward  particular  types  of  articu- 
lation. The  vowels  tend  to  become  higher  or  lower,  the 
diphthongs  tend  to  coalesce  into  monophthongs,  the  voice- 
less consonants  tend  to  become  voiced,  stops  tend  to 
become  spirants.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  practically  all 
the  phonetic  laws  enumerated  in  the  two  tables  are  but 
specific  instances  of  such  far-reaching  phonetic  drifts. 
The  raising  of  English  long  o  to  u  and  of  long  e  to  i, 
for  instance,  was  part  of  a  general  tendency  to  raise  the 
position  of  the  long  vowels,  just  as  the  change  of  t  to  ss 
in  Old  High  German  was  part  of  a  general  tendency  to 
make  voiceless  spirants  of  the  old  voiceless  stopped  con- 
sonants. A  single  sound  change,  even  if  there  is  no 
phonetic  leveling,  generally  threatens  to  upset  the  old 
phonetic  pattern  because  it  brings  about  a  disharmony 
in  the  grouping  of  sounds.    To  reestablish  the  old  pattern 

15  These  confusions  are  more  theoretical  than  real,  however. 
A  language  has  countless  methods  of  avoiding  practical  ambigui- 
ties. 


PHONETIC  LAW  195 

without  going  back  on  the  drift  the  only  possible  method 
is  to  have  the  other  sounds  of  the  series  shift  in  analogous 
fashion.  If,  for  some  reason  or  other,  p  becomes  shifted 
to  its  voiced  correspondent  h,  the  old  series  p,  t,  k  ap- 
pears in  the  unsymmetrical  form  b,  t,  k.  Such  a  series 
is,  in  phonetic  effect,  not  the  equivalent  of  the  old  series, 
however  it  may  answer  to  it  in  etymology.  The  gen- 
eral phonetic  pattern  is  impaired  to  that  extent.  But 
if  t  and  k  are  also  shifted  to  their  voiced  correspondents 
d  and  g,  the  old  series  is  reestablished  in  a  new  form : 
h,  d,  g.  The  pattern  as  such  is  preserved,  or  restored. 
Provided  that  the  new  series  h,  d,  g  does  not  become  con- 
fused with  an  old  series  h,  d,  g  of  distinct  historical 
antecedents.  If  there  is  no  such  older  series,  the  crea- 
tion of  ah,  d,  g  series  causes  no  difficulties.  If  there  is, 
the  old  patterning  of  sounds  can  be  kept  intact  only  by 
shifting  the  old  h,  d,  g  sounds  in  some  way.  They  may 
become  aspirated  to  hh,  dli,  gh  or  spirantized  or  nasalized 
or  they  may  develop  any  other  peculiarity  that  keeps 
them  intact  as  a  series  and  serves  to  differentiate  them 
from  other  series.  And  this  sort  of  shifting  about  with- 
out loss  of  pattern,  or  with  a  minimum  loss  of  it,  is 
probably  the  most  important  tendency  in  the  history  of 
speech  sounds.  Phonetic  leveling  and  "splitting"  coun- 
teract it  to  some  extent  but,  on  the  whole,  it  remains  the 
central  unconscious  regulator  of  the  course  and  speed 
of  sound  changes. 

The  desire  to  hold  on  to  a  pattern,  the  tendency  to 
"correct"  a  disturbance  by  an  elaborate  chain  of  sup- 
plementary changes,  often  spread  over  centuries  or  even 
millennia — these  psychic  undercurrents  of  language  are 
exceedingly  difficult  to  understand  in  terms  of  individual 
psychology,  though  there  can  be  no  denial  of  their  his- 
torical reality.     What  is  the  primary  cause  of  the  un- 


196  LANGUAGE 

settling  of  a  phonetic  pattern  and  what  is  the  cumulative 
force  that  selects  these  or  those  particular  variations  of 
the  individual  on  which  to  float  the  pattern  readjust- 
ments we  hardly  know.  Many  linguistic  students  have 
made  the  fatal  error  of  thinking  of  sound  change  as  a 
quasi-physiological  instead  of  as  a  strictly  psychological 
phenomenon,  or  they  have  tried  to  dispose  of  the  problem 
by  bandying  such  catchwords  as  "the  tendency  to  in- 
creased ease  of  articulation"  or  ''the  cumulative  result 
of  faulty  perception"  (on  the  part  of  children,  say,  in 
learning  to  speak).  These  easy  explanations  will  not 
do.  "Ease  of  articulation"  may  enter  in  as  a  factor, 
but  it  is  a  rather  subjective  concept  at  best.  Indians 
find  hopelessly  difficult  sounds  and  sound  combinations 
that  are  simple  to  us  ;  one  language  encourages  a  phonetic 
drift  that  another  does  everything  to  fight.  "Faulty 
perception"  does  not  explain  that  impressive  drift  in 
speech  sounds  which  I  have  insisted  upon.  It  is  much 
better  to  admit  that  we  do  not  yet  understand  the  pri- 
mary cause  or  causes  of  the  slow  drift  in  phonetics, 
though  we  can  frequently  point  to  contributing  factors. 
It  is  likely  that  we  shall  not  advance  seriously  until  we 
study  the  intuitional  bases  of  speech.  How  can  we  un- 
derstand the  nature  of  the  drift  that  frays  and  reforms 
phonetic  patterns  when  we  have  never  thought  of  study- 
ing sound  patterning  as  such  and  the  "weights"  and 
psychic  relations  of  the  single  elements  (the  individual 
sounds)  in  these  patterns? 

Every  linguist  knows  that  phonetic  change  is  fre- 
quently followed  by  morphological  rearrangements,  but 
he  is  apt  to  assume  that  morphology  exercises  little  or 
no  influence  on  the  course  of  phonetic  history.  I  am 
inclined  to  believe  that  our  present  tendency  to 
isolate  phonetics  and  grammar  as  mutually  irrelevant 


PHONETIC  LAW  197 

linguistic  provinces  is  unfortunate.  There  are  likely  to 
be  fundamental  relations  between  them  and  their  re- 
spective histories  that  we  do  not  yet  fully  grasp.  After 
all,  if  speech  sounds  exist  merely  because  they  are  the 
symbolic  carriers  of  significant  concepts  and  groupings 
of  concepts,  why  may  not  a  strong  drift  or  a  permanent 
feature  in  the  conceptual  sphere  exercise  a  furthering 
or  retarding  influence  on  the  phonetic  drift?  I  believe 
that  such  influences  may  be  demonstrated  and  that  they 
deserve  far  more  careful  study  than  they  have  received. 
This  brings  us  back  to  our  unanswered  question :  How 
is  it  that  both  English  and  German  developed  the  curi- 
ous alternation  of  unmodified  vowel  in  the  singular 
{foot,  Fuss)  and  modified  vowel  in  the  plural  {feet, 
Fiisse)  1  Was  the  pre-Anglo-Saxon  alternation  of  fat 
and  foti  an  absolutely  mechanical  matter,  without  other 
than  incidental  morphological  interest?  It  is  always 
so  represented,  and,  indeed,  all  the  external  facts  sup- 
pprt  such  a  view.  The  change  from  o  to  o,  later  e,  is  by 
no  means  peculiar  to  the  plural.  It  is  found  also  in  the 
dative  singular  {fet),  for  it  too  goes  back  to  an  older 
foti.  Moreover,  fet  of  the  plural  applies  only  to  the 
nominative  and  accusative;  the  genitive  has  fota,  the 
dative  fotuni.  Only  centuries  later  was  the  alternation 
of  0  and  e  reinterpreted  as  a  means  of  distinguishing 
number;  o  was  generalized  for  the  singular,  e  for  the 
plural.  Only  when  this  reassortment  of  forms  took 
place  ^^  was  the  modern  symbolic  value  of  the  foot:  feet 
alternation  clearly  established.  Again,  we  must  not  for- 
get that  0  was  modified  to  o  (e)  in  all  manner  of  other 
grammatical  and  derivative  formations.  Thus,  a  pre- 
Anglo-Saxon  hohan  (later  hoii)  "to  hang"  corresponded 

16  A   type  of  adjustment   generally  referred  to   as   "analogical 
leveling.'' 


198  LANGUAGE 

to  a  IwlutJi,  hcliith  (later  liehth)  "hangs";  to  dom 
"doom,"  Mod  "blood,"  and  fod  "food"  corresponded 
the  verbal  derivatives  domian  (later  demmi)  "to  deem," 
hlodian  (later  hledan)  "to  bleed,"  and  fodian  (later 
fedan)  "to  feed."  All  this  seems  to  point  to  the  purely 
mechanical  nature  of  the  modification  of  o  to  o  to  e.  So 
many  unrelated  functions  Avere  ultimately  served  by  the 
vocalic  change  that  we  cannot  believe  that  it  was  mo- 
tivated by  any  one  of  them. 

The  German  facts  are  entirely  analogous.  Only  later 
in  the  history  of  the  language  was  the  vocalic  alterna- 
tion made  significant  for  number.  And  yet  consider 
the  following  facts.  The  change  of  foti  to  foti  ante- 
dated that  of  foti  to  fote,  fot.  This  may  be  looked  upon 
as  a  "lucky  accident,"  for  if  foti  had  become  fote,  fot 
before  the  -i  had  had  the  chance  to  exert  a  retroactive 
influence  on  the  o,  there  would  have  been  no  difference 
between  the  singular  and  the  plural.  This  would  have 
been  anomalous  in  Anglo-Saxon  for  a  masculine  noun. 
But  was  the  sequence  of  phonetic  changes  an  "acci- 
dent"? Consider  two  further  facts.  All  the  Germanic 
languages  were  familiar  with  vocalic  change  as  pos- 
sessed of  functional  significance.  Alternations  like  smg, 
sang,  sung  (Anglo-Saxon  singan,  sang,  sungen)  were 
ingrained  in  the  linguistic  consciousness.  Further,  the 
tendency  toward  the  weakening  of  final  syllables  was 
very  strong  even  then  and  had  been  manifesting  itself 
in  one  way  and  another  for  centuries.  I  believe  that 
these  further  facts  help  us  to  understand  the  actual  se- 
quence of  phonetic  changes.  We  may  go  so  far  as  to 
say  that  the  o  (and  u)  could  afford  to  stay  the  change 
to  o  (and  u)  until  the  destructive  drift  had  advanced 
to  the  point  where  failure  to  modify  the  vowel  would 
soon  result  in  morphological  embarrassment.    At  a  cer- 


PHONETIC  LAW  199^ 

tain  moment  the  -i  ending  of  the  plural  (and  analogous 
endings  with  i  in  other  formations)  was  felt  to  be  too 
weak  to  quite  bear  its  functional  burden.  The  uncon- 
scious Anglo-Saxon  mind,  if  I  may  be  allowed  a  some- 
what summary  way  of  putting  the  complex  facts,  was 
glad  of  the  opportunity  afforded  by  certain  individual 
variations,  until  then  automatically  canceled  out,  to 
have  some  share  of  the  burden  thrown  on  them.  These 
particular  variations  won  through  because  they  so  beau- 
tifully allowed  the  general  phonetic  drift  to  take  its 
course  without  unsettling  the  morphological  contours  of 
the  language.  And  the  presence  of  symbolic  variation 
(sing,  sang,  sung)  acted  as  an  attracting  force  on  the 
rise  of  a  new  variation  of  similar  character.  All  these 
factors  were  equally  true  of  the  German  vocalic  shift. 
Owing  to  the  fact  that  the  destructive  phonetic  drift  was 
proceeding  at  a  slower  rate  in  German  than  in  English, 
the  preservative  change  of  uo  to  He  {u  to  it)  did  not  need 
to  set  in  until  300  years  or  more  after  the  analogous  Eng- 
lish change.  Nor  did  it.  And  this  is  to  my  mind  a 
highly  significant  fact.  Phonetic  changes  may  some- 
times be  unconsciously  encouraged  in  order  to  keep  in- 
tact the  psychological  spaces  between  words  and  word 
forms.  The  general  drift  seizes  upon  those  individual 
sound  variations  that  help  to  preserve  the  morphological 
balance  or  to  lead  to  the  new  balance  that  the  language 
is  striving  for. 

I  w^ould  suggest,  then,  that  phonetic  change  is  com- 
pacted of  at  least  three  basic  strands:  (1)  A  general 
drift  in  one  direction,  concerning  the  nature  of  which 
we  know  almost  nothing  but  which  may  be  suspected  to 
be  of  prevailingly  dynamic  character  (tendencies,  e.g., 
to  greater  or  less  stress,  greater  or  less  voicing  of  ele- 
ments) ;  (2)  A  readjusting  tendency  which  aims  to  pre- 


200  LANGUAGE 

serve  or  restore  the  fundamental  phonetic  pattern  of  the 
language;  (3)  A  preservative  tendency  which  sets  in 
when  a  too  serious  morphological  unsettlement  is  threat- 
ened by  the  main  drift.  I  do  not  imagine  for  a  moment 
that  it  is  always  possible  to  separate  these  strands  or 
that  this  purely  schematic  statement  does  justice  to  the 
complex  forces  that  guide  the  phonetic  drift.  The 
phonetic  pattern  of  a  language  is  not  invariable,  but 
it  changes  far  less  readily  than  the  sounds  that  compose 
it.  Every  phonetic  element  that  it  possesses  may  change 
radically  and  yet  the  pattern  remain  unaffected.  It 
would  be  absurd  to  claim  that  our  present  English  pat- 
tern is  identical  with  the  old  Indo-European  one,  yet  it 
is  impressive  to  note  that  even  at  this  late  day  the  Eng- 
lish series  of  initial  consonants: 

p  t  k 
b  d  g 
f      th     h 

corresponds  point  for  point  to  the  Sanskrit  series: 

h      d      g 
bh     dh     gli 
p       t        k 

The  relation  between  phonetic  pattern  and  individual 
sound  is  roughly  parallel  to  that  which  obtains  between 
the  morphologic  type  of  a  language  and  one  of  its  spe- 
cific morphological  features.  Both  phonetic  pattern  and 
fundamental  type  are  exceedingly  conservative,  all  su- 
perficial appearances  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding. 
Which  is  more  so  we  cannot  say.  I  suspect  that  they 
hang  together  in  a  way  that  we  cannot  at  present  quite 
"understand. 

If   all  the   phonetic   changes   brought   about   by   the 
phonetic  drift  were  allowed  to  stand,  it  is  probable  that 


PHONETIC  LAW  201 

most  languages  would  present  such  irregularities  of  mor- 
phological contour  as  to  lose  touch  with  their  formal 
ground-plan.  Sound  changes  work  mechanically.  Hence 
they  are  likely  to  affect  a  whole  morphological  group 
here — this  does  not  matter — ,  only  part  of  a  morphologi- 
cal group  there — and  this  may  be  disturbing.  Thus, 
the  old  Anglo-Saxon  paradigm : 


Sing. 

Plur. 

N.  Ac. 

fot 

fet  (older  foti) 

G. 

fotes 

fota 

D. 

fet  (older  foti) 

fotum 

could  not  long  stand  unmodified.  The  o — e  alternation 
was  welcome  in  so  far  as  it  roughly  distinguished  the 
singular  from  the  plural.  The  dative  singular  fet,  how- 
ever, though  justified  historically,  was  soon  felt  to  be 
an  intrusive  feature.  The  analogy  of  simpler  and  more 
numerously  represented  paradigms  created  the  form  fote 
(compare,  e.g.,  fisc  ''fish,"  dative  singular  fisce).  Fet 
as  a  dative  becomes  obsolete.  The  singular  now  had  o 
throughout.  But  this  very  fact  made  the  genitive  and 
dative  o-forms  of  the  plural  seem  out  of  place.  The 
nominative  and  accusative  fet  was  naturally  far  more 
frequently  in  use  than  were  the  corresponding  forms  of 
the  genitive  and  dative.  These,  in  the  end,  could  not 
but  follow  the  analogy  of  fet.  At  the  very  beginning 
of  the  Middle  English  period,  therefore,  we  find  that  the 
old  paradigm  has  yielded  to  a  more  regular  one : 


Sing. 

Plur. 

N.  Ac. 

*fot 

*fet 

G. 

* fotes 

fete 

D. 

fote 

feten 

The  starred  forms  are  the  old  nucleus  around  which  the 
new  paradigm  is  built.     The  unstarred  forms  are  not 


202  LANGUAGE 

genealogical  kin  of  their  formal  prototypes.  They  are 
analogical  replacements. 

The  history  of  the  English  language  teems  with  such 
levelings  or  extensions.  Elder  and  eldest  were  at  one 
time  the  only  possible  comparative  and  superlative  forms 
of  old  (compare  German  alt,  alter,  der  dlteste;  the  vowel 
following  the  old-,  alt-  was  originally  an  i,  which  modified 
the  quality  of  the  stem  vowel).  The  general  analogy  of 
the  vast  majority  of  English  adjectives,  however,  has 
caused  the  replacement  of  the  forms  elder  and  eldest  by 
the  forms  with  unmodified  vowel,  older  and  oldest.  Elder 
and  eldest  survive  only  as  somewhat  archaic  terms  for 
the  older  and  oldest  brother  or  sister.  This  illustrates 
the  tendency  for  words  that  are  psychologically  discon- 
nected from  their  etymological  or  formal  group  to  pre- 
serve traces  of  phonetic  laws  that  have  otherwise  left  no 
recognizable  trace  or  to  preserve  a  vestige  of  a  morpho- 
logical process  that  has  long  lost  its  vitality.  A  careful 
study  of  these  survivals  or  atrophied  forms  is  not  without 
value  for  the  reconstruction  of  the  earlier  history  of  a 
language  or  for  suggestive  hints  as  to  its  remoter  affilia- 
tions. 

Analogy  may  not  only  refashion  forms  within  the  con- 
fines of  a  related  cluster  of  forms  (a  "paradigm")  but 
may  extend  its  influence  far  beyond.  Of  a  number  of 
functionally  equivalent  elements,  for  instance,  only  one 
may  survive,  the  rest  yielding  to  its  constantly  widening 
influence.  This  is  what  happened  with  the  English  -s 
plural.  Originally  confined  to  a  particular  class  of  mas- 
culines, though  an  important  class,  the  -s  plural  was 
gradually  generalized  for  all  nouns  but  a  mere  handful 
that  still  illustrate  plural  types  now  all  but  extinct 
{foot:  feet,  goose:  geese,  tootli:  teetli,  mouse:  mice,  louse: 
lice;  ox:  oxen;  child:  children;  sheep:  sheep,  deer:  deer). 


PHONETIC  LAW  203 

Thus  analogy  not  only  regularizes  irregularities  that 
have  come  in  the  wake  of  phonetic  processes  but  intro- 
duces disturbances,  generally  in  favor  of  greater  sim- 
plicity or  regularity,  in  a  long  established  system  of 
forms.  These  analogical  adjustments  are  practically  al- 
ways symptoms  of  the  general  morphological  drift  of 
the  language, 

A  morphological  feature  that  appears  as  the  incidental 
consequence  of  a  phonetic  process,  like  the  English  plural 
with  modified  vowel,  may  spread  by  analogy  no  less  read- 
ily than  old  features  that  owe  their  origin  to  other  than 
phonetic  causes.  Once  the  e-vowel  of  Middle  English 
fet  had  become  confined  to  the  plural,  there  was  no  the- 
oretical reason  why  alternations  of  the  type  fot:  fet  and 
mais:  mis  might  not  have  become  established  as  a  pro- 
ductive type  of  number  distinction  in  the  noun.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  it  did  not  so  become  established.  The 
fot:  fet  type  of  plural  secured  but  a  momentary  foothold. 
It  was  swept  into  being  by  one  of  the  surface  drifts  of 
the  language,  to  be  swept  aside  in  the  Middle  English 
period  by  the  more  powerful  drift  toward  the  use  of 
simple  distinctive  forms.  It  was  too  late  in  the  day  for 
our  language  to  be  seriously  interested  in  such  pretty 
symbolisms  as  foot:  feet.  "What  examples  of  the  type 
arose  legitimately,  in  other  words  via  purely  phonetic 
processes,  were  tolerated  for  a  time,  but  the  type  as  such 
never  had  a  serious  future. 

It  was  different  in  German.  The  whole  series  of 
phonetic  changes  comprised  under  the  term  "umlaut," 
of  which  u:  ii  and  au:  oi  (written  du)  are  but  specific 
examples,  struck  the  German  language  at  a  time  when 
the  general  drift  to  morphological  simplification  was  not 
so  strong  but  that  the  resulting  formal  types  (e.g..  Fuss: 
Fusse;  fallen  "to  ialV:  fallen  "to  fell";  fi"orn  "horn": 


204  LANGUAGE 

Gehorne  "group  of  horns";  Haus  "house":  Hduslein 
"little  house")  could  keep  themselves  intact  and  even 
extend  to  forms  that  did  not  legitimately  come  within 
their  sphere  of  influence.  "Umlaut"  is  still  a  very  live 
symbolic  process  in  German,  possibly  more  alive  to-day 
than  in  medieval  times.  Such  analogical  plurals  as  Baum 
"tree":  Bdume  (contrast  Middle  High  German  houm: 
houme)  and  derivatives  as  lacJien  "to  laugh":  Geldcliter 
"laughter"  (contrast  Middle  High  German  greZac/i)  show 
that  vocalic  mutation  has  won  through  to  the  status  of 
a  productive  morphologic  process.  Some  of  the  dialects 
have  even  gone  further  than  standard  German,  at  least 
in  certain  respects.  In  Yiddish,^^  for  instance,  "um- 
laut" plurals  have  been  formed  where  there  are  no 
Middle  High  German  prototypes  or  modern  literary  par- 
allels, e.g.,  tog  "day":  teg  "days"  (but  German  Tag: 
Tags)  on  the  analogy  of  gast  "guest":  gest  "guests" 
(German  Gast:  Gdste) ,  sliucJi^^  "shoe":  shicli  "shoes" 
(but  German  SchuJi:  SchuJie)  on  the  analogy  of  fus 
"foot":  fis  "feet."  It  is  possible  that  "umlaut"  will 
run  its  course  and  cease  to  operate  as  a  live  functional 
process  in  German,  but  that  time  is  still  distant.  Mean- 
while all  consciousness  of  the  merely  phonetic  nature  of 
"umlaut"  vanished  centuries  ago.  It  is  now  a  strictly 
morphological  process,  not  in  the  least  a  mechanical 
phonetic  adjustment.  We  have  in  it  a  splendid  example 
of  how  a  simple  phonetic  law,  meaningless  in  itself,  may 
eventually  color  or  transform  large  reaches  of  the  mor- 
phology of  a  language. 

17  Isolated  from  other  German  dialects  in  the  late  fifteenth 
and  early  sixteenth  centuries.  It  is  therefore  a  good  test  for 
gauging  the  strength  of  the  tendency  to  "umlaut,"  particularly  as 
it  has  developed  a  strong  drift  towards  analytic  methods, 

18  Ch  as  in  German  Buch. 


IX 

HOW  LANGUAGES   INFLUENCE   EACH   OTHER 

Languages,  like  cultures,  are  rarely  sufficient  unto 
themselves.  The  necessities  of  intercourse  bring  the 
speakers  of  one  language  into  direct  or  indirect  contact 
with  those  of  neighboring  or  culturally  dominant  lan- 
guages. The  intercourse  may  be  friendly  or  hostile.  It 
may  move  on  the  humdrum  plane  of  business  and  trade 
relations  or  it  may  consist  of  a  borrowing  or  interchange 
of  spiritual  goods — art,  science,  religion.  It  would  be 
difficult  to  point  to  a  completely  isolated  language  or 
dialect,  least  of  all  among  the  primitive  peoples.  The 
tribe  is  often  so  small  that  intermarriages  with  alien 
tribes  that  speak  other  dialects  or  even  totally  unrelated 
languages  are  not  uncommon.  It  may  even  be  doubted 
whether  intermarriage,  intertribal  trade,  and  general 
cultural  interchanges  are  not  of  greater  relative  sig- 
nificance on  primitive  levels  than  on  our  own.  What- 
ever the  degree  or  nature  of  contact  between  neighboring 
peoples,  it  is  generally  sufficient  to  lead  to  some  kind  of 
linguistic  interinfluencing.  Frequently  the  influence 
runs  heavily  in  one  direction.  The  language  of  a  people 
that  is  looked  upon  as  a  center  of  culture  is  naturally 
far  more  likely  to  exert  an  appreciable  influence  on  other 
languages  spoken  in  its  vicinity  than  to  be  influenced  by 
them.  Chinese  has  flooded  the  vocabularies  of  Corean, 
Japanese,  and  Annamite  for  centuries,  but  has  received 
nothing  in  return.  In  the  western  Europe  of  medieval 
and  modern  times  French  has  exercised  a  similar,  though 

205 


206  LANGUAGE 

probably  a  less  overwhelming,  influence.     English  bor- 
rowed an  immense  number  of  words  from  the  French  of 
the  Norman  invaders,  later  also  from  the  court  French 
of  Isle  de  France,  appropriated  a  certain  number  of 
affixed  elements  of  derivational  value  (e.g.,  -ess  of  prin- 
cess, -ard  of  drunkard,  -ty  of  royalty),  may  have  been 
somewhat  stimulated  in  its  general  analytic  drift  by 
contact  with  French,^  and  even  allowed  French  to  modify 
its  phonetic  pattern  slightly  (e.g.,  initial  v  and  j  in  words 
like  veal  and  judge;  in  words  of  Anglo-Saxon  origin  v 
and  j  can  only  occur  after  vowels,  e.g.,  over,  hedge) .     But 
English  has  exerted  practically  no  influence  on  French. 
The  simplest  kind  of  influence  that  one  language  may 
exert  on  another  is  the  "borrowing"  of  words.     When 
there  is  cultural  borrowing  there  is  always  the  likelihood 
that  the  associated  words  may  be  borrowed  too.     When 
the  early  Germanic  peoples  of  northern   Europe  first 
learned  of  wine-culture  and  of  paved  streets  from  their 
commercial  or  warlike  contact  with  the  Romans,  it  was 
only  natural  that  they  should  adopt  the  Latin  words 
for  the  strange  beverage  {vinum,  English  wine,  German 
Wein)  and  the  unfamiliar  type  of  road  {strata  [via], 
English  street,  German  Strasse).    Later,  when  Chris- 
tianity was  introduced  into  England,  a  number  of  asso- 
ciated words,  such  as   hisliop   and  angel,  found  their 
way  into  English.    And  so  the  process  has  continued  un- 
interruptedly down  to  the  present  day,  each  cultural 
wave  bringing  to  the  language  a  new  deposit  of  loan- 
words.    The  careful  study  of  such  loan-words  consti- 
tutes an  interesting  commentary  on  the  history  of  cul- 
ture.    One  can  almost  estimate  the  role  which  various 

1  The  earlier  students  of  English,  however,  grossly  exaggerated 
the  general  "disintegrating"  effect  of  French  on  middle  English. 
Eiiijlish  was  moving  fast  toward  a  more  analytic  structure  long 
hcfore  the  French  influence  set  in. 


LANGUAGES  INFLUENCE  EACH  OTHER        207 

peoples  have  played  in  the  development  and  spread  of 
cultural  ideas  by  taking  note  of  the  extent  to  which 
their  vocabularies  have  filtered  into  those  of  other  peo- 
ples.    When  we  realize  that  an  educated  Japanese  can 
hardly  frame  a  single  literary  sentence  without  the  use 
of  Chinese  resources,  that  to  this  day  Siamese  and  Bur- 
mese and  Cambodgian  bear  the  unmistakable  imprint  of 
the  Sanskrit  and  Pali  that  came  in  with  Hindu  Bud- 
dhism centuries  ago,  or  that  whether  we  argue  for  or 
against  the  teaching  of  Latin  and  Greek  our  argument 
is  sure  to  be  studded  with  words  that  have  come  to  us 
from  Rome  and  Athens,  we  get  some  inkling  of  what 
early  Chinese  culture  and  Buddhism  and  classical  Medi- 
terranean civilization  have  meant  in  the  world's  history. 
There  are  just  five  languages  that  have  had  an  over- 
whelming significance  as  carriers  of  culture.     They  are 
classical  Chinese,   Sanskrit,  Arabic,   Greek,   and  Latin. 
In  comparison  with  these  even  such  culturally  important 
languages  as  Hebrew  and  French  sink  into  a  secondary 
position.     It  is  a  little  disappointing  to  learn  that  the 
general  cultural  influence  of  English  has  so  far  been  all 
but  negligible.     The  English  language  itself  is  spread- 
ing because  the  English  have  colonized  immense  terri- 
tories.    But  there  is  nothing  to  show  that  it  is  any- 
where entering  into  the  lexical  heart  of  other  languages 
as  French  has  colored  the   English   complexion   or  as 
Arabic  has  permeated  Persian  and  Turkish.     This  fact 
alone  is  significant  of  the  power  of  nationalism,  cultural 
as  well  as  political,  during  the  last  century.     There  are 
now  psychological  resistances  to  borrowing,   or  rather 
to  new  sources  of  borrowing,^  that  were  not  greatly  alive 
in  the  Middle  Ages  or  during  the  Renaissance. 

2  For  we  still  name  our  new  scientific  instruments  and  patent 
medicines  from  Greek  and  Latin. 


208  LANGUAGE 

Are  there  resistances  of  a  more  intimate  nature  to  the 
borrowing  of  words?  It  is  generally  assumed  that  the 
nature  and  extent  of  borrowing  depend  entirely  on  the 
historical  facts  of  culture  relation ;  that  if  German,  for 
instance,  has  borrowed  less  copiously  than  English  from 
Latin  and  French  it  is  only  because  Germany  has  had 
less  intimate  relations  than  England  with  the  culture 
spheres  of  classical  Rome  and  France.  This  is  true  to 
a  considerable  extent,  but  it  is  not  the  whole  truth.  We 
must  not  exaggerate  the  physical  importance  of  the  Nor- 
man invasion  nor  underrate  the  significance  of  the  fact 
that  Germany's  central  geographical  position  made  it 
peculiarly  sensitive  to  French  influences  all  through  the 
Middle  Ages,  to  humanistic  influences  in  the  latter  fif- 
teenth and  early  sixteenth  centuries,  and  again  to  the 
powerful  French  influences  of  the  seventeenth  and  eight- 
eenth centuries.  It  seems  very  probable  that  the  psycho- 
logical attitude  of  the  borrowing  language  itself  towards 
linguistic  material  has  much  to  do  with  its  receptivity 
to  foreign  words.  English  has  long  been  striving  for 
the  completely  unified,  unanalyzed  word,  regardless  of 
whether  it  is  monosyllabic  or  polysyllabic.  Such  words 
as  credible,  certitude,  intangible  are  entirely  welcome  in 
English  because  each  represents  a  unitary,  well-nuanced 
idea  and  because  their  formal  analysis  {cred-ihle,  cert- 
itude, in-tang-ihle)  is  not  a  necessary  act  of  the  uncon- 
scious mind  {cred-,  cert-,  and  tang-  have  no  real  exist- 
ence in  English  comparable  to  that  of  good-  in  goodness). 
A  word  like  intangible,  once  it  is  acclimated,  is  nearly 
as  simple  a  psychological  entity  as  any  radical  mono- 
syllable (say  vague,  tliin,  grasp).  In  German,  however, 
polysyllabic  words  strive  to  analyze  themselves  into 
significant  elements.  Hence  vast  numbers  of  French 
and  Latin  words,  borrowed  at  the  height  of  certain  cul- 


LANGUAGES  INrLUENCE  EACH  OTHER        209 

tural  influences,  could  not  maintain  themselves  in  the 
language.  Latin-German  words  like  kredibel  "credi- 
ble" and  French-German  words  like  reussieren  "to  suc- 
ceed" offered  nothing  that  the  unconscious  mind  could 
assimilate  to  its  customary  method  of  feeling  and  han- 
dling words.  It  is  as  though  this  unconscious  mind  said : 
"I  am  perfectly  willing  to  accept  kredibel  if  you  will 
just  tell  me  what  you  mean  by  kred-."  Hence  German 
has  generally  found  it  easier  to  create  new  words  out  of 
its  own  resources,  as  the  necessity  for  them  arose. 

The  psychological  contrast  between  English  and  Ger- 
man as  regards  the  treatment  of  foreign  material  is  a 
contrast  that  may  be  studied  in  all  parts  of  the  world. 
The  Athabaskan  languages  of  America  are  spoken  by 
peoples  that  have  had  astonishingly  varied  cultural  con- 
tacts, yet  nowhere  do  we  find  that  an  Athabaskan  dia- 
lect has  borrowed  at  all  freely  ^  from  a  neighboring  lan- 
guage. These  languages  have  always  found  it  easier 
to  create  new  words  by  compounding  afresh  elements 
ready  to  hand.  They  have  for  this  reason  been  highly 
resistant  to  receiving  the  linguistic  impress  of  the  ex- 
ternal cultural  experiences  of  their  speakers.  Cam- 
bodgian  and  Tibetan  ofPer  a  highly  instructive  contrast 
in  their  reaction  to  Sanskrit  influence.  Both  are  ana- 
lytic languages,  each  totally  different  from  the  highly- 
wrought,  inflective  language  of  India.  Cambodgian  is 
isolating,  but,  unlike  Chinese,  it  contains  many  poly- 
syllabic words  whose  etymological  analysis  does  not  mat- 
ter. Like  English,  therefore,  in  its  relation  to  French 
and  Latin,  it  welcomed  immense  numbers  of  Sanskrit 
loan-words,  many  of  which  are  in  common  use  to-day. 
There  was  no  psychological  resistance  to  them.  Classi- 
cal Tibetan  literature  was  a  slavish  adaptation  of  Hindu 

3  One  might  all  but  say,  "has  borrowed  at  all." 


210  LANGUAGE 

Buddhist  literature  and  nowhere  has  Buddhism  im- 
planted itself  more  firmly  than  in  Tibet,  yet  it  is  strange 
how  few  Sanskrit  words  have  found  their  way  into  the 
language.  Tibetan  was  highly  resistant  to  the  poly- 
syllabic words  of  Sanskrit  because  they  could  not  auto- 
matically fall  into  significant  syllables,  as  they  should 
have  in  order  to  satisfy  the  Tibetan  feeling  for  form. 
Tibetan  was  therefore  driven  to  translating  the  great 
majority  of  these  Sanskrit  words  into  native  equivalents. 
The  Tibetan  craving  for  form  was  satisfied,  though  the 
literally  translated  foreign  terms  must  often  have  done 
violence  to  genuine  Tibetan  idiom.  Even  the  proper 
names  of  the  Sanskrit  originals  were  carefully  trans- 
lated, element  for  element,  into  Tibetan ;  e.g.,  Surya- 
garhha  "Sun-bosomed"  was  carefully  Tibetanized  into 
Nyi-mai  snying-po  "Sun-of  heart-the,  the  heart  (or  es- 
sence) of  the  sun."  The  study  of  how  a  language  reacts 
to  the  presence  of  foreign  words — rejecting  them,  trans- 
lating them,  or  freely  accepting  them — may  throw  much 
valuable  light  on  its  innate  formal  tendencies. 

The  borrowing  of  foreign  words  always  entails  their 
phonetic  modification.  There  are  sure  to  be  foreign 
sounds  or  accentual  peculiarities  that  do  not  fit  the  native 
phonetic  habits.  They  are  then  so  changed  as  to  do  as 
little  violence  as  possible  to  these  habits.  Frequently 
we  have  phonetic  compromises.  Such  an  English  word 
as  the  recently  introduced  camouflage,  as  now  ordi- 
narily pronounced,  corresponds  to  the  typical  phonetic 
usage  of  neither  English  nor  French.  The  aspirated  k, 
the  obscure  vowel  of  the  second  syllable,  the  precise 
quality  of  the  I  and  of  the  last  a,  and,  above  all,  the 
strong  accent  on  the  first  syllable,  are  all  the  results 
of  unconscious  assimilation  to  our  English  habits  of  pro- 
nunciation.    They  differentiate  our  camouflage  clearly 


LANGUAGES  INFLUENCE  EACH  OTHER       211 

from  the  same  word  as  pronounced  by  the  French.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  long,  heavy  vowel  in  the  third  sylla- 
ble and  the  final  position  of  the  ''zh"  sound  (like  z  in 
Q,zure)  are  distinctly  un-English,  just  as,  in  Middle  Eng- 
lish, the  initial  j  and  v  *  must  have  been  felt  at  first  as 
not  strictly  in  accord  with  English  usage,  though  the 
strangeness  has  worn  off  by  now.  In  all  four  of  these 
cases — initial  j,  initial  v,  final  "zh,"  and  unaccented  a 
of  fatJier — English  has  not  taken  on  a  new  sound  but  has 
merely  extended  the  use  of  an  old  one. 

Occasionally  a  new  sound  is  introduced,  but  it  is 
likely  to  melt  away  before  long.  In  Chaucer's  day  the 
old  Anglo-Saxon  il  (written  y)  had  long  become  un- 
rounded to  i,  but  a  new  set  of  ii- vowels  had  come  in  from 
the  French  (in  such  words  as  due,  value,  nature).  The 
new  u  did  not  long  hold  its  own ;  it  became  diphthongized 
to  iu  and  was  amalgamated  with  the  native  iw  of  words 
like  new  and  slew.  Eventually  this  diphthong  appears 
as  yu,  with  change  of  stress — dew  (from  Anglo-Saxon 
deaw)  like  due  (Chaucerian  dil).  Facts  like  these  show 
how  stubbornly  a  language  resists  radical  tampering  with 
its  phonetic  pattern. 

Nevertheless,  we  know  that  languages  do  influence 
each  other  in  phonetic  respects,  and  that  quite  aside 
from  the  taking  over  of  foreign  sounds  with  borrowed 
words.  One  of  the  most  curious  facts  that  linguistics 
has  to  note  is  the  occurrence  of  striking  phonetic  par- 
allels in  totally  unrelated  or  very  remotely  related  lan- 
guages of  a  restricted  geographical  area.  These  par- 
allels become  especially  impressive  when  they  are  seen 
contrastively  from  a  wide  phonetic  perspective.  Here 
are  a  few  examples.  The  Germanic  languages  as  a  whole 
have  not  developed  nasalized  vowels.     Certain  Upper 

4  See  page  206. 


212  LANGUAGE 

German  (Suabian)  dialects,  however,  have  now  nasalized 
vowels  in  lieu  of  the  older  vowel  +  nasal  consonant  (n). 
Is  it  only  accidental  that  these  dialects  are  spoken  in 
proximity  to  French,  which  makes  abundant  use  of  nasal- 
ized vowels?  Again,  there  are  certain  general  phonetic 
features  that  mark  off  Dutch  and  Flemish  in  contrast, 
say,  to  North  German  and  Scandinavian  dialects.  One 
of  these  is  the  presence  of  unaspirated  voiceless  stops 
(p,  t,  k),  which  have  a  precise,  metallic  quality  remi- 
niscent of  the  corresponding  French  sounds,  but  which 
contrast  with  the  stronger,  aspirated  stops  of  English, 
North  German,  and  Danish.  Even  if  we  assume  that 
the  unaspirated  stops  are  more  archaic,  that  they  are 
the  unmodified  descendants  of  the  old  Germanic  con- 
sonants, is  it  not  perhaps  a  significant  historical  fact 
that  the  Dutch  dialects,  neighbors  of  French,  were  in- 
hibited from  modifying  these  consonants  in  accordance 
with  what  seems  to  have  been  a  general  Germanic 
phonetic  drift  ?  Even  more  striking  than  these  instances 
is  the  peculiar  resemblance,  in  certain  special  phonetic 
respects,  of  Russian  and  other  Slavic  languages  to  the 
unrelated  Ural-Altaic  languages  ^  of  the  Volga  region. 
The  peculiar,  dull  vowel,  for  instance,  known  in  Russian 
as  ' '  yeri ' '  ^  has  Ural-Altaic  analogues,  but  is  entirely 
wanting  in  Germanic,  Greek,  Armenian,  and  Indo- 
Iranian,  the  nearest  Indo-European  congeners  of  Slavic. 
"We  may  at  least  suspect  that  the  Slavic  vowel  is  not 
historically  unconnected  with  its  Ural-Altaic  parallels. 
One  of  the  most  puzzling  cases  of  phonetic  parallelism 
is  afforded  by  a  large  number  of  American  Indian  lan- 
guages spoken  west  of  the  Rockies.     Even  at  the  most 

5  Ugro-Finnic   and  Turkish    (Tartar). 

e  Probably,  in  Sweet's  terminology,  high-back  (or,  better,  be- 
tween back  and  "mixed"  positions) -narrow-unrounded.  It  gen« 
erally  corresponds  to  an  Indo-Europeau  long  u. 


LANGUAGES  INFLUENCE  EACH  OTHER       213 

radical  estimate  there  are  at  least  four  totally  unrelated 
linguistic  stocks  represented  in  the  region  from  southern 
Alaska  to  central  California.  Nevertheless  all,  or  prac- 
tically all,  the  languages  of  this  immense  area  have 
some  important  phonetic  features  in  common.  Chief  of 
these  is  the  presence  of  a  "glottalized"  series  of  stopped 
consonants  of  very  distinctive  formation  and  of  quite  un- 
usual acoustic  effect.'^  In  the  northern  part  of  the  area 
all  the  languages,  whether  related  or  not,  also  possess 
various  voiceless  Z-sounds  and  a  series  of  "velar"  (back- 
guttural)  stopped  consonants  which  are  etymologically 
distinct  from  the  ordinary  A'-series.  It  is  difficult  to 
believe  that  three  such  peculiar  phonetic  features  as  I 
have  mentioned  could  have  evolved  independently  in 
neighboring  groups  of  languages. 

How  are  we  to  explain  these  and  hundreds  of  similar 
phonetic  convergences?  In  particular  cases  we  may 
really  be  dealing  with  archaic  similarities  due  to  a 
genetic  relationship  that  it  is  beyond  our  present  power 
to  demonstrate.  But  this  interpretation  will  not  get 
us  far.  It  must  be  ruled  entirely  out  of  court,  for  in- 
stance, in  two  of  the  three  European  examples  I  have 
instanced;  both  nasalized  vowels  and  the  Slavic  "yeri" 
are  demonstrably  of  secondary  origin  in  Indo-European. 
However  we  envisage  the  process  in  detail,  we  cannot 
avoid  the  inference  that  there  is  a  tendency  for  speech 
sounds  or  certain  distinctive  manners  of  articulation  to 
spread  over  a  continuous  area  in  somewhat  the  same 
way  that  elements  of  culture  ray  out  from  a  geographi- 
cal center.  We  may  suppose  that  individual  variations 
arising  at  linguistic  borderlands — whether  by  the  un- 
conscious suggestive  influence  of  foreign  speech  habits 

7  There  seem  to  be  analogous  or  partly  analogous  sounds  in  cer- 
tain languages  of  the  Caucasus. 


214  LANGUAGE 

or  by  the  actual  transfer  of  foreign  sounds  into  the 
speech  of  bilingual  individuals — have  gradually  been  in- 
corporated into  the  phonetic  drift  of  a  language.  So 
long  as  its  main  phonetic  concern  is  the  preservation  of 
its  sound  patterning,  not  of  its  sounds  as  such,  there 
is  really  no  reason  why  a  language  may  not  uncon- 
sciously assimilate  foreign  sounds  that  have  succeeded 
in  worming  their  way  into  its  gamut  of  individual  va- 
riations, provided  always  that  these  new  variations  (or 
reinforced  old  variations)  are  in  the  direction  of  the 
native  drift. 

A  simple  illustration  will  throw  light  on  this  con- 
ception. Let  us  suppose  that  two  neighboring  and  un- 
related languages,  A  and  B,  each  possess  voiceless  l- 
sounds  (compare  Welsh  II).  We  surmise  that  this  is 
not  an  accident.  Perhaps  comparative  study  reveals 
the  fact  that  in  language  A  the  voiceless  Z-sounds  cor- 
respond to  a  sibilant  series  in  other  related  languages, 
that  an  old  alternation  s:  sh  has  been  shifted  to  the  new 
alternation  I  (voiceless)  :  s.^  Does  it  follow  that  the 
voiceless  I  of  language  B  has  had  the  same  history  ?  Not 
in  the  least.  Perhaps  B  has  a  strong  tendency  toward 
audible  breath  release  at  the  end  of  a  word,  so  that  the 
final  I,  like  a  final  vowel,  was  originally  followed  by  a 
marked  aspiration.  Individuals  perhaps  tended  to  an- 
ticipate a  little  the  voiceless  release  and  to  "unvoice" 
the  latter  part  of  the  final  Z-sound  (very  much  as  the  I 
of  English  words  like  felt  tends  to  be  partly  voiceless 
in  anticipation  of  the  voieelessness  of  the  t).  Yet  this 
final  I  with  its  latent  tendency  to  unvoicing  might  never 
have  actually  developed  into  a  fully  voiceless  I  had  not 
the  presence  of  voiceless  Z-sounds  in  A  acted  as  an  un- 

8  This  can  actually  be  demonstrated  for  one  of  the  Athabaskan 
dialects  of  the  Yukon. 


LANGUAGES  INFLUENCE  EACH  OTHER       215 

conscious  stimulus  or  suggestive  push  toward  a  more 
radical  change  in  the  line  of  B's  own  drift.  Once  the 
final  voiceless  I  emerged,  its  alternation  in  related  words 
with  medial  voiced  I  is  very  likely  to  have  led  to  its 
analogical  spread.  The  result  would  be  that  both  A  and  B 
have  an  important  phonetic  trait  in  common.  Even- 
tually their  phonetic  systems,  judged  as  mere  assem- 
blages of  sounds,  might  even  become  completely  assimi- 
lated to  each  other,  though  this  is  an  extreme  case  hardly 
ever  realized  in  practice.  The  highly  significant  thing 
about  such  phonetic  interinfluencings  is  the  strong  tend- 
ency of  each  language  to  keep  its  phonetic  pattern  in- 
tact. So  long  as  the  respective  alignments  of  the  similar 
sounds  is  different,  so  long  as  they  have  differing  ''val- 
ues" and  "weights"  in  the  unrelated  languages,  these 
languages  cannot  be  said  to  have  diverged  materially 
from  the  line  of  their  inherent  drift.  In  phonetics,  as 
in  vocabulary,  we  must  be  careful  not  to  exaggerate  the 
importance  of  interlinguistic  influences. 

I  have  already  pointed  out  in  passing  that  English 
has  taken  over  a  certain  number  of  morphological  ele- 
ments from  French.  English  also  uses  a  number  of 
affixes  that  are  derived  from  Latin  and  Greek.  Some 
of  these  foreign  elements,  like  the  -ize  of  ^materialize  or 
the  -ahle  of  breakable,  are  even  productive  to-day.  Such 
examples  as  these  are  hardly  true  evidences  of  a  mor- 
phological influence  exerted  by  one  language  on  an- 
other. Setting  aside  the  fact  that  they  belong  to  the 
sphere  of  derivational  concepts  and  do  not  touch  the  cen- 
tral morphological  problem  of  the  expression  of  relational 
ideas,  they  have  added  nothing  to  the  structural  pecu- 
liarities of  our  language.  English  was  already  prepared 
for  the  relation  of  pity  to  piteous  by  such  a  native  pair 
as   luck   and   lucky;  material   and   materialize   merely 


216  LANGUAGE 

swelled  the  ranks  of  a  form  pattern  familiar  from  such 
instances  as  wide  and  widen.  In  other  words,  the  mor- 
phological influence  exerted  by  foreign  languages  on  Eng- 
lish, if  it  is  to  be  gauged  by  such  examples  as  I  have 
cited,  is  hardly  different  in  kind  from  the  mere  borrow- 
ing of  words.  The  introduction  of  the  suffix  -ize  made 
hardly  more  difference  to  the  essential  build  of  the  lan- 
guage than  did  the  mere  fact  that  it  incorporated  a 
given  number  of  words.  Had  English  evolved  a  new 
future  on  the  model  of  the  synthetic  future  in  French 
or  had  it  borrowed  from  Latin  and  Greek  their  employ- 
ment of  reduplication  as  a  functional  device  (Latin 
tango:  tetigi;  Greek  leipo:  leloipa),  we  should  have  the 
right  to  speak  of  true  morphological  influence.  But  such 
far-reaching  influences  are  not  demonstrable.  Within 
the  whole  course  of  the  history  of  the  English  language 
we  can  hardly  point  to  one  important  morphological 
change  that  was  not  determined  by  the  native  drift, 
though  here  and  there  we  may  surmise  that  this  drift 
was  hastened  a  little  by  the  suggestive  influence  of 
French  forms.** 

It  is  important  to  realize  the  continuous,  self-contained 
morphological  development  of  English  and  the  very 
modest  extent  to  which  its  fundamental  build  has  been 
affected  by  influences  from  without.  The  history  of  the 
English  language  has  sometimes  been  represented  as 
though  it  relapsed  into  a  kind  of  chaos  on  the  arrival 
of  the  Normans,  who  proceeded  to  play  nine-pins  with 
the  Anglo-Saxon  tradition.  Students  are  more  con- 
servative today.  That  a  far-reaching  analytic  develop- 
ment  may   take   place   without   such    external   foreign 

9  In  the  sphere  of  syntax  one  may  point  to  certain  French  -and 
Latin  influences,  but  it  is  doubtful  if  they  ever  reached  deeper 
than  the  written  language.  Much  of  this  type  of  influence  be- 
longs rather  to  literary  style  than  to  morphology  proper 


LANGUAGES  INFLUENCE  EACH  OTHER       217 

influence  as  English  was  subjected  to  is  clear  from 
the  history  of  Danish,  which  has  gone  even  further  than 
English  in  certain  leveling  tendencies.  English  may 
be  conveniently  used  as  an  a  fortiori  test.  It  was  flooded 
with  French  loan-words  during  the  later  Middle  Ages, 
at  a  time  when  its  drift  toward  the  analytic  type  was 
especially  strong.  It  was  therefore  changing  rapidly 
both  within  and  on  the  surface.  The  wonder,  then,  is 
not  that  it  took  on  a  number  of  external  morphological 
features,  mere  accretions  on  its  concrete  inventory,  but 
that,  exposed  as  it  was  to  remolding  influences,  it  re- 
mained so  true  to  its  own  type  and  historic  drift.  The 
experience  gained  from  the  study  of  the  English  lan- 
guage is  strengthened  by  all  that  we  know  of  documented 
linguistic  history.  Nowhere  do  we  find  any  but  super- 
ficial morphological  interinfluencings.  We  may  infer 
one  of  several  things  from  this: — That  a  really  serious 
morphological  influence  is  not,  perhaps,  impossible,  but 
that  its  operation  is  so  slow  that  it  has  hardly  ever  had 
the  chance  to  incorporate  itself  in  the  relatively  small 
portion  of  linguistic  history  that  lies  open  to  inspec- 
tion ;  or  that  there  are  certain  favorable  conditions  that 
make  for  profound  morphological  disturbances  f^'oni 
without,  say  a  peculiar  instability  of  linguistic  typo 
or  an  unusual  degree  of  cultural  contact,  conditions  that 
do  not  happen  to  be  realized  in  our  documentary  ma- 
terial; or,  finally,  that  we  have  not  the  right  to  assume 
that  a  language  may  easily  exert  a  remolding  morphologi- 
cal influence  on  another. 

Meanwhile  we  are  confronted  by  the  baffling  fact  that 
important  traits  of  morphology  are  frequently  found  dis- 
tributed among  widely  differing  languages  within  a 
large  area,  so  widely  differing,  indeed,  that  it  is  cus^ 
tomary  to  consider  them  genetically  unrelated.     Some- 


218  LANGUAGE 

times  we  may  suspect  that  the  resemblance  is  due  to  a 
mere  convergence,  that  a  similar  morphological  feature 
has  grown  up  independently  in  unrelated  languages. 
Yet  certain  morphological  distributions  are  too  specific 
in  character  to  be  so  lightly  dismissed.  There  must  be 
some  historical  factor  to  account  for  them.  Now  it 
should  be  remembered  that  the  concept  of  a  "linguistic 
stock"  is  never  definitive^"  in  an  exclusive  sense.  We 
can  only  say,  with  reasonable  certainty,  that  such 
and  such  languages  are  descended  from  a  common 
source,  but  we  cannot  say  that  such  and  such 
other  languages  are  not  genetically  related.  All  we 
can  do  is  to  say  that  the  evidence  for  relationship 
is  not  cumulative  enough  to  make  the  inference  of 
common  origin  absolutely  necessary.  May  it  not  be, 
then,  that  many  instances  of  morphological  similarity 
between  divergent  languages  of  a  restricted  area  are 
merely  the  last  vestiges  of  a  community  of  type  and 
phonetic  substance  that  the  destructive  work  of  diverg- 
ing drifts  has  now  made  unrecognizable?  There  is 
probably  still  enough  lexical  and  morphological  resem- 
blance between  modern  English  and  Irish  to  enable  us 
to  make  out  a  fairly  conclusive  case  for  their  genetic 
relationship  on  the  basis  of  the  present-day  descriptive 
evidence  alone.  It  is  true  that  the  case  would  seem 
weak  in  comparison  to  the  case  that  we  can  actually 
make  with  the  help  of  the  historical  and  the  compara- 
tive data  that  we  possess.  It  would  not  be  a  bad  case 
nevertheless.  In  another  two  or  three  millennia,  how- 
ever, the  points  of  resemblance  are  likely  to  have  be- 
come so  obliterated  that  English  and  Irish,  in  the  ab- 
sence of  all  but  their  own  descriptive  evidence,  will 
have  to  be  set  down  as  "unrelated"  languages.    They 

10  See  page  163. 


LANGUAGES  INFLUENCE  EACH  OTHER        219 

will  still  have  in  common  certain  fundamental  morpho- 
logical features,  but  it  will  be  difficult  to  know  how  to 
evaluate  them.  Only  in  the  light  of  the  contrastive 
perspective  afforded  by  still  more  divergent  languages, 
such  as  Basque  and  Finnish,  will  these  vestigial  resem- 
blances receive  their  true  historic  value. 

I  cannot  but  suspect  that  many  of  the  more  signifi- 
cant distributions  of  morphological  similarities  are  to 
be  explained  as  just  such  vestiges.  The  theory  of  "bor- 
rowing" seems  totally  inadequate  to  explain  those  fun- 
damental features  of  structure,  hidden  away  in  the  very 
core  of  the  linguistic  complex,  that  have  been  pointed 
out  as  common,  say,  to  Semitic  and  Hamitic,  to  the 
various  Soudanese  languages,  to  Malayo-Polynesian  and 
Mon-Khmer  ^^  and  Munda,^-  to  Athabaskan  and  Tlingit 
and  Haida.  We  must  not  allow  ourselves  to  be  fright- 
ened away  by  the  timidity  of  the  specialists,  who  are 
often  notably  lacking  in  the  sense  of  what  I  have  called 
** contrastive  perspective." 

Attempts  have  sometimes  been  made  to  explain  the 
distribution  of  these  fundamental  structural  features  by 
the  theory  of  diffusion.  We  know  that  myths,  religious 
ideas,  types  of  social  organization,  industrial  devices, 
and  other  features  of  culture  may  spread  from  point 
to  point,  gradually  making  themselves  at  home  in  cul- 
tures to  which  they  were  at  one  time  alien.  We  also 
know  that  words  may  be  diffused  no  less  freely  than 
cultural  elements,  that  sounds  also  may  be  "borrowed," 
and  that  even  morphological  elements  may  be  taken  over. 
We  may  go  further  and  recognize  that  certain  lan- 
guages have,  in  all  probability,  taken  on  structural  fea- 

11  A  group  of  languages  spoken  in  southeastern  Asia,  of  which 
Khmer   (Cambodgian)   is  the  best  known  representative. 

12  A  group  of  languages  spoken  in  northeastern  India. 


220  LANGUAGE 

tures  owing  to  the  suggestive  influence  of  neighboring 
languages.  An  examination  of  such  cases/^  however, 
almost  invariably  reveals  the  significant  fact  that  they 
are  but  superficial  additions  on  the  morphological  kernel 
of  the  language.  So  long  as  such  direct  historical  testi- 
mony as  we  have  gives  us  no  really  convincing  examples 
of  profound  morphological  influence  by  diffusion,  we 
shall  do  well  not  to  put  too  much  reliance  in  diffusion 
theories.  On  the  whole,  therefore,  we  shall  ascribe  the 
major  concordances  and  divergences  in  linguistic  form — 
phonetic  pattern  and  morphology — to  the  autonomous 
drift  of  language,  not  to  the  complicating  effect  of  sing- 
diffused  features  that  cluster  now  this  way,  now  that. 
Language  is  probably  the  most  self-contained,  the  most 
massively  resistant  of  all  social  phenomena.  It  is  easier 
to  kill  it  off  than  to  disintegrate  its  individual  form. 

13  I  have  in  mind,  e.g.,  the  presence  of  postpositions  in  Upper 
Chinook,  a  feature  that  is  clearly  due  to  the  influence  of  neigh- 
boring Sahaptin  languages;  or  the  use  by  Takelma  of  instrumen- 
tal prefixes,  which  are  likely  to  have  been  suggested  by  neigh- 
boring "Hokan"  languages  (Shasta,  Karok). 


LANGUAGE,  RACE   AND  CULTURE 

Language  has  a  setting.  The  people  that  speak  it 
belong  to  a  race  (or  a  number  of  races),  that  is,  to  a 
group  which  is  set  off  by  physical  characteristics  from 
other  groups.  Again,  language  does  not  exist  apart  from 
culture,  that  is,  from  the  socially  inherited  assemblage 
of  practices  and  beliefs  that  determines  the  texture  of 
our  lives.  Anthropologists  have  been  in  the  habit  of 
studying  man  under  the  three  rubrics  of  race,  language, 
and  culture.  One  of  the  first  things  they  do  with  a 
natural  area  like  Africa  or  the  South  Seas  is  to  map 
it  out  from  this  threefold  point  of  view.  These  maps 
answer  the  questions  :What  and  where  are  the  major 
divisions  of  the  human  animal,  biologically  considered 
(e.g.,  Congo  Negro,  Egyptian  White;  Australian  Black, 
Polynesian)  ?  What  are  the  most  inclusive  linguistic 
groupings,  the  "linguistic  stocks,"  and  what  is  the  dis- 
tribution of  each  (e.g.,  the  Hamitic  languages  of  north- 
ern Africa,  the  Bantu  languages  of  the  south ;  the 
Malayo-Polynesian  languages  of  Indonesia,  Melanesia, 
Micronesia,  and  Polynesia)  ?  How  do  the  peoples  of 
the  given  area  divide  themselves  as  cultural  beings? 
what  are  the  outstanding  "cultural  areas"  and  what 
are  the  dominant  ideas  in  each  (e.g.,  the  Mohammedan 
north  of  Africa ;  the  primitive  hunting,  non-agricultural 
culture  of  the  Bushmen  in  the  south ;  the  culture  of  the 
Australian  natives,  poor  in  physical  respects  but  richly 

221 


222  LANGUAGE 

developed  in  ceremonialism;   the   more  advanced   and 
highly  specialized  culture  of  Polynesia)  ? 

The  man  in  the  street  does  not  stop  to  analyze  his 
position  in  the  general  scheme  of  humanity.  He  feels 
that  he  is  the  representative  of  some  strongly  integrated 
portion  of  humanity — now  thought  of  as  a  "nation- 
ality," now  as  a  "race" — and  that  everything  that  per- 
tains to  him  as  a  typical  representative  of  this  large 
group  somehow  belongs  together.  If  he  is  an  Eng- 
lishman, he  feels  himself  to  be  a  member  of  the  ' '  Anglo- 
Saxon"  race,  the  "genius"  of  which  race  has  fashioned 
the  English  language  and  the  "Anglo-Saxon"  culture 
of  which  the  language  is  the  expression.  Science  is 
colder.  It  inquires  if  these  three  types  of  classification 
— racial,  linguistic,  and  cultural — are  congruent,  if  their 
association  is  an  inherently  necessary  one  or  is  merely 
a  matter  of  external  history.  The  answer  to  the  inquiry 
is  not  encouraging  to  "race"  sentimentalists.  Histori- 
ans and  anthropologists  find  that  races,  languages,  and 
cultures  are  not  distributed  in  parallel  fashion,  that  their 
areas  of  distribution  intercross  in  the  most  bewildering 
fashion,  and  that  the  history  of  each  is  apt  to  follow 
a  distinctive  course.  Races  intermingle  in  a  way  that 
languages  do  not.  On  the  other  hand,  languages  may 
spread  far  beyond  their  original  home,  invading  the 
territory  of  new  races  and  of  new  culture  spheres.  A 
language  may  even  die  out  in  its  primary  area  and 
live  on  among  peoples  violently  hostile  to  the  persons 
of  its  original  speakers.  Further,  the  accidents  of  his- 
tory are  constantly  rearranging  the  borders  of  culture 
areas  without  necessarily  effacing  the  existing  linguistic 
cleavages.  If  we  can  once  thoroughly  convince  our- 
selves that  race,  in  its  only  intelligible,  that  is  biological, 


LANGUAGE,  RACE  AND  CULTURE  223 

sense,  is  supremely  indifferent  to  the  history  of  lan- 
guages and  cultures,  that  these  are  no  more  directly  ex- 
plainable on  the  score  of  race  than  on  that  of  the  laws 
of  physics  and  chemistry,  we  shall  have  gained  a  view- 
point that  allows  a  certain  interest  to  such  mystic  slogans 
as  Slavophilism,  Anglo-Saxondom,  Teutonism,  and  the 
Latin  genius  but  that  quite  refuses  to  be  taken  in  by  any 
of  them.  A  careful  study  of  linguistic  distributions  and 
of  the  history  of  such  distributions  is  one  of  the  driest 
of  commentaries  on  these  sentimental  creeds. 

That  a  group  of  languages  need  not  in  the  least  cor- 
respond to  a  racial  group  or  a  culture  area  is  easily  dem- 
onstrated. "We  may  even  show  how  a  single  language  in- 
tercrosses with  race  and  culture  lines.  The  English 
language  is  not  spoken  by  a  unified  race.  In  the  United 
States  there  are  several  millions  of  negroes  who  know 
no  other  language.  It  is  their  mother-tongue,  the  formal 
vesture  of  their  inmost  thoughts  and  sentiments.  It  is 
as  much  their  property,  as  inalienably  "theirs,"  as  the 
King  of  England's.  Nor  do  the  English-speaking  whites 
of  America  constitute  a  definite  race  except  by  way  of 
contrast  to  the  negroes.  Of  the  three  fundamental  white 
races  in  Europe  generally  recognized  by  physical  an- 
thropologists— the  Baltic  or  North  European,  the  Alpine, 
and  the  Mediterranean — each  has  numerous  English- 
speaking  representatives  in  America.  But  does  not  the 
historical  core  of  English-speaking  peoples,  those  rela- 
tively "unmixed"  populations  that  still  reside  in  Eng- 
land and  its  colonies,  represent  a  race,  pure  and  single? 
I  cannot  see  that  the  evidence  points  that  way.  The 
English  people  are  an  amalgam  of  many  distinct  strains. 
Besides  the  old  "Anglo-Saxon,"  in  other  words  North 
German,   element  which  is  conventionally   represented 


224  LANGUAGE 

as  the  basic  strain,  the  English  blood  comprises  Norman 
French/  Scandinavian,  "Celtic,"-  and  pre-Celtic  ele- 
ments. If  by  "  English ' '  we  mean  also  Scotch  and  Irish,^ 
then  the  term  "Celtic"  is  loosely  used  for  at  least  two 
quite  distinct  racial  elements — the  short,  dark-complex- 
ioned type  of  Wales  and  the  taller,  lighter,  often  ruddy- 
haired  type  of  the  Highlands  and  parts  of  Ireland.  Even 
if  we  confine  ourselves  to  the  Saxon  element,  which, 
needless  to  say,  nowhere  appears  "pure,"  we  are 
not  at  the  end  of  our  troubles.  We  may  roughly  iden- 
tif}^  this  strain  with  the  racial  type  now  predominant 
in  southern  Denmark  and  adjoining  parts  of  northern 
Germany.  If  so,  we  must  content  ourselves  with  the 
reflection  that  while  the  English  language  is  historically 
most  closely  affiliated  Avith  Frisian,  in  second  degree  with 
the  other  West  Germanic  dialects  (Low  Saxon  or  "Platt- 
deutsch,"  Dutch,  High  German),  only  in  third  degree 
with  Scandinavian,  the  specific  ' '  Saxon ' '  racial  type  that 
overran  England  in  the  fifth  and  sixth  centuries  was 
largely  the  same  as  that  now  represented  by  the  Danes, 
who  speak  a  Scandinavian  language,  while  the  High  Ger- 

1  Itself  an  amalgam  of  North  'Trench"  and  Scandinavian  ele- 
ments. 

2  The  "Celtic"  blood  of  what  is  now  England  and  Wales  is  by 
no  means  confined  to  the  Celtic-speaking  regions— Wales  and, 
until  recently,  Cornwall.  There  is  every  reason  to  believe  that 
the  invading  Germanic  tribes  (Angles,  Saxons,  Jutes)  did  not 
exterminate  tlie  Brythonic  Celts  of  England  nor  yet  drive  them 
altogether  into  Wales  and  Cornwall  (there  has  been  far  too  much 
"driving"  of  conquered  peoples  into  mountain  fastnesses  and 
land's  ends  in  our  histories),  but  simply  intermingled  with  them 
and  imposed  their  rule  and  language  upon  them. 

3  In  practice  these  three  peoples  can  hardly  be  kept  altogether 
distinct.  The  terms  have  rather  a  local-sentimental  than  a 
clearly  racial  value.  Intermarriage  has  gone  on  steadily  for 
centuries  and  it  is  only  in  certain  outlying  regions  that  we  get 
relatively  pure  types,  e.g.,  the  Highland  Scotch  of  the  Hebrides. 
In  America,  English,  Scotch,  and  Irish  strands  have  become 
inextricably  interwoven. 


LANGUAGE,  RACE  AND  CULTURE  225 

man-speaking  population  of  central  and  southern  Ger- 
many *  is  markedly  distinct. 

But  what  if  we  ignore  these  finer  distinctions  and 
simply  assume  that  the  "Teutonic"  or  Baltic  or  North 
European  racial  type  coincided  in  its  distribution  with 
that  of  the  Germanic  languages?  Are  we  not  on  safe 
ground  then?  No,  we  are  now  in  hotter  water  than 
ever.  First  of  all,  the  mass  of  the  German-speaking 
population  (central  and  southern  Germany,  German 
Switzerland,  German  Austria)  do  not  belong  to  the  tall, 
blond-haired,  long-headed^  "Teutonic"  race  at  all,  but 
to  the  shorter,  darker-complexioned,  short-headed  ^  Al- 
pine race,  of  which  the  central  population  of  France, 
the  French  Swiss,  and  many  of  the  western  and  north- 
ern Slavs  (e.g.,  Bohemians  and  Poles)  are  equally  good 
representatives.  The  distribution  of  these  "Alpine" 
populations  corresponds  in  part  to  that  of  the  old  con- 
tinental "Celts,"  whose  language  has  everywhere  given 
way  to  Italic,  Germanic,  and  Slavic  pressure.  We  shall 
do  well  to  avoid  speaking  of  a  "Celtic  race,"  but  if  we 
were  driven  to  give  the  term  a  content,  it  would  prob- 
ably be  more  appropriate  to  apply  it  to,  roughly,  the 
western  portion  of  the  Alpine  peoples  than  to  the  two 
island  types  that  I  referred  to  before.  These  latter  were 
certainly  "Celticized,"  in  speech  and,  partly,  in  blood, 
precisely  as,  centuries  later,  most  of  England  and  part 
of  Scotland  was  "Teutonized"  by  the  Angles  and  Sax- 
ons. Linguistically  speaking,  the  "Celts"  of  to-day 
(Irish  Gaelic,  Manx,  Scotch  Gaelic,  Welsh,  Breton)  are 

4  The  High  German  now  spoken  in  northern  Germany  is  not  of 
great  age,  but  is  due  to  the  spread  of  standardized  German,  uased 
on  Upper  Saxon,  a  High  German  dialect,  at  the  expense  of 
"Plattdeutsch." 

5  "Dolichocephalic." 
«  "Brachycephalic." 


226  LANGUAGE 

Celtic  and  most  of  the  Germans  of  to-day  are  Germanic 
precisely  as  the  American  Negro,  Americanized  Jew, 
Minnesota  Swede,  and  German- American  are  "English." 
But,  secondly,  the  Baltic  race  was,  and  is,  by  no  means 
an  exclusively  Germanic-speaking  people.  The  north- 
ernmost "Celts,"  such  as  the  Highland  Scotch,  are  in 
all  probability  a  specialized  offshoot  of  this  race.  What 
these  people  spoke  before  they  were  Celticized  nobody 
knows,  but  there  is  nothing  whatever  to  indicate  that 
they  spoke  a  Germanic  language.  Their  language  may 
quite  well  have  been  as  remote  from  any  known  Indo- 
European  idiom  as  are  Basque  and  Turkish  to-day. 
Again,  to  the  east  of  the  Scandinavians  are  non-Germanic 
members  of  the  race — the  Finns  and  related  peoples, 
speaking  languages  that  are  not  definitely  known  to  be 
related  to  Indo-European  at  all. 

We  cannot  stop  here.  The  geographical  position  of 
the  Germanic  languages  is  such  '^  as  to  make  it  highly 
probable  that  they  represent  but  an  outlying  transfer  of 
an  Indo-European  dialect  (possibly  a  Celto-Italic  pro- 
totype) to  a  Baltic  people  speaking  a  language  or  a 
group  of  languages  that  was  alien  to  Indo-European.* 
Not  only,  then,  is  English  not  spoken  by  a  unified  race 
at  present  but  its  prototype,  more  likely  than  not,  was 
originally  a  foreign  language  to  the  race  with  which 

7  By  working  back  from  such  data  as  we  possess  we  can  make 
it  probable  that  these  languages  were  o'-iginally  confined  to  a 
comparatively  small  area  in  northern  Germany  and  Scandinavia. 
This  area  is  clearly  marginal  to  the  total  area  of  distribution  of 
the  Indo-European-speaking  peoples.  Their  center  of  gravity, 
say  1000  B.C.,  seems  to  have  lain  in  southern  Riissia. 

8  While  this  is  only  a  theory,  the  technical  evidence  for  it  ia 
stronger  than  one  might  suppose.  There  are  a  surprising 
number  of  common  and  characteristic  Germanic  words  which  can- 
not be  connected  with  known  Indo-European  radical  elements 
and  which  may  well  be  survivals  of  the  hypothetical  pre-Ger- 
manic  language;  such  are  house,  stone,  sea,  loife  (German  Haus, 
Stein,  See.  Weib). 


LANGUAGE,  RACE  AND  CULTURE  227 

English  is  more  particularly  associated.  We  need  not 
seriously  entertain  the  idea  that  English  or  the  group 
of  languages  to  which  it  belongs  is  in  any  intelligible 
sense  the  expression  of  race,  thi  t  there  are  embedded 
in  it  qualities  that  reflect  the  temperament  or  "genius" 
of  a  particular  breed  of  human  beings. 

Many  other,  and  more  striking,  examples  of  the  lack 
of  correspondence  between  race  and  language  could  be 
given  if  space  permitted.  One  instance  will  do  for  many. 
The  Malayo-Polynesian  languages  form  a  well-defined 
group  that  takes  in  the  southern  end  of  the  Malay  Penin- 
sula and  the  tremendous  island  world  to  the  south  and 
east  (except  Australia  and  the  greater  part  of  New 
Guinea).  In  this  vast  region  we  find  represented  no 
less  than  three  distinct  races — the  Negro-like  Papuans  of 
New  Guinea  and  Melanesia,  the  Malay  race  of  Indonesia, 
and  the  Polynesians  of  the  outer  islands.  The  Polyne- 
sians and  Malays  all  speak  languages  of  the  Malayo- 
Polynesian  group,  while  the  languages  of  the  Papuans 
belong  partly  to  this  group  (Melanesian),  partly  to  the 
unrelated  languages  ("Papuan")  of  New  Guinea.®  In 
spite  of  the  fact  that  the  greatest  race  cleavage  in  this 
region  lies  between  the  Papuans  and  the  Polynesians,  the 
major  linguistic  division  is  of  Malayan  on  the  one  sidC; 
Melanesian  and  Polynesian  on  the  other. 

As  with  race,  so  with  culture.  Particularly  in  more 
primitive  levels,  where  the  secondarily  unifying  power 
of  the  * '  national ' '  ^°  ideal  does  not  arise  to  disturb  the 

9  Only  the  easternmost  part  of  this  island  is  occupied  by 
Melanesian-speaking    Papuans. 

10  A  "nationality"  is  a  major,  sentimentally  unified,  group. 
The  historical  factors  that  lead  to  the  feeling  of  national  unity 
are  various — political,  cultural,  linguistic,  geographic,  sometimes 
specifically  religious.  True  racial  factors  also  may  enter  in, 
though  the  accent  on  "race"  has  generally  a  psychological  rather 
than  a  strictly  biological  value.     In  an  area  dominated  by  the 


228  LANGUAGE 

flow  of  what  we  might  call  natural  distributions,  is  it 
easy  to  show  that  language  and  culture  are  not  intrinsi- 
cally associated.  Totally  unrelated  languages  share  in 
one  culture,  closely  related  languages — even  a  single  lan- 
guage— belong  to  distinct  culture  spheres.  There  are 
many  excellent  examples  in  aboriginal  America.  The 
Athabaskan  languages  form  as  clearly  unified,  as  struc- 
turally specialized,  a  group  as  any  that  I  know  of.^^ 
The  speakers  of  these  languages  belong  to  four  distinct 
culture  areas — the  simple  hunting  culture  of  western 
Canada  and  the  interior  of  Alaska  (Loucheux,  Chipe- 
wyan),  the  buffalo  culture  of  the  Plains  (Sarcee),  the 
highly  ritualized  culture  of  the  southwest  (Navaho),  and 
the  peculiarly  specialized  culture  of  northwestern  Cali- 
fornia (Hupa).  The  cultural  adaptability  of  the  Atha- 
baskan-speaking  peoples  is  in  the  strangest  contrast  to 
the  inaccessibility  to  foreign  influences  of  the  languages 
themselves.^-  The  Hupa  Indians  are  very  typical  of  the 
culture  area  to  which  they  belong.  Culturally  identical 
with  them  are  the  neighboring  Yurok  and  Karok.  There 
is  the  liveliest  intertribal  intercourse  between  the  Hupa, 
Yurok,  and  Karok,  so  much  so  that  all  three  generally 
attend  an  important  religious  ceremony  given  by  any 
one  of  them.  It  is  difficult  to  say  what  elements  in  their 
combined  culture  belong  in  origin  to  this  tribe  or  that, 
so  much  at  one  are  they  in  communal  action,  feeling,  and 

national  sentiment  there  is  a  tendency  for  language  and  culture 
to  become  uniform  and  specific,  so  that  linguistic  and  cultural 
boundaries  at  least  tend  to  coincide.  Even  at  beat,  however, 
the  linguistic  unification  is  never  absolute,  while  the  cultural 
unity  is  apt  to  be  superficial,  of  a  quasi-political  nature,  rather 
than  deep  and  far-reaching. 

11  The    Semitic    languages,    idiosyncratic   as   they   are,   are   no 
more  definitely  ear-marked. 

12  See  page  209. 


LANGUAGE,  RACE  AND  CULTURE  229 

thought.  But  their  languages  are  not  merely  alien  to 
each  other;  they  belong  to  three  of  the  major  American 
linguistic  groups,  each  with  an  immense  distribution  on 
the  northern  continent.  Hupa,  as  we  have  seen,  is  Atha- 
baskan  and,  as  such,  is  also  distantly  related  to  Haida 
(Queen  Charlotte  Islands)  and  Tlingit  (southern 
Alaska)  ;  Yurok  is  one  of  the  two  isolated  Californian 
languages  of  the  Algonkin  stock,  the  center  of  gravity 
of  which  lies  in  the  region  of  the  Great  Lakes;  Karok 
is  the  northernmost  member  of  the  Hokan  group,  which 
stretches  far  to  the  south  beyond  the  confines  of  Cali- 
fornia and  has  remoter  relatives  along  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico. 

Returning  to  English,  most  of  us  would  readily  admit, 
I  believe,  that  the  community  of  language  between  Great 
Britain  and  the  United  States  is  far  from  arguing  a  like 
community  of  culture.  It  is  customary  to  say  that  they 
possess  a  common  "Anglo-Saxon"  cultural  heritage,  but 
are  not  many  significant  differences  in  life  and  feeling 
obscured  by  the  tendency  of  the  ' '  cultured ' '  to  take  this 
common  heritage  too  much  for  granted?  In  so  far  as 
America  is  still  specifically  "English,"  it  is  only  coloni- 
ally  or  vestigially  so ;  its  prevailing  cultural  drift  is 
partly  towards  autonomous  and  distinctive  developments, 
partly  towards  immersion  in  the  larger  European  cul- 
ture of  which  that  of  England  is  only  a  particular  facet. 
"VVe  cannot  deny  that  the  possession  of  a  common  lan- 
guage is  still  and  will  long  continue  to  be  a  smoother 
of  the  way  to  a  mutual  cultural  understanding  between 
England  and  America,  but  it  Is  very  clear  that  other 
factors,  some  of  them  rapidly  cumulative,  are  working 
powerfully  to  counteract  this  leveling  influence.  A  com- 
mor.  language  cannot  indefinitely  set  the  seal  on  a  com- 


230  LANGUAGE 

mon  culture  when  the  geographical,  political,  and  eco- 
nomic determinants  of  the  culture  are  no  longer  the 
same  throughout  its  area. 

Language,  race,  and  culture  are  not  necessarily  cor- 
related. This  does  not  mean  that  they  never  are.  There 
is  some  tendency,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  for  racial  and 
cultural  lines  of  cleavage  to  correspond  to  linguistic  ones, 
though  in  any  given  case  the  latter  may  not  be  of  the 
same  degree  of  importance  as  the  others.  Thus,  there 
is  a  fairly  definite  line  of  cleavage  between  the  Poly- 
nesian languages,  race,  and  culture  on  the  one  hand  and 
those  of  the  Melanesians  on  the  other,  in  spite  of  a  con- 
siderable amount  of  overlapping.^^  The  racial  and  cul- 
tural division,  however,  particularly  the  former,  are  of 
major  importance,  while  the  linguistic  division  is  of  quite 
minor  significance,  the  Polynesian  languages  constituting 
hardly  more  than  a  special  dialectic  subdivision  of  the 
combined  Melanesian-Polynesian  group.  Still  clearer- 
cut  coincidences  of  cleavage  may  be  found.  The  lan- 
guage, race,  and  culture  of  the  Eskimo  are  markedly 
distinct  from  those  of  their  neighbors ;  ^*  in  southern 
Africa  the  language,  race,  and  culture  of  the  Bushmen 
offer  an  even  stronger  contrast  to  those  of  their  Bantu 
neighbors.  Coincidences  of  this  sort  are  of  the  greatest 
significance,  of  course,  but  this  significance  is  not  one 
of  inherent  psychological  relation  between  the  three  fac- 
tors of  race,  language,  and  culture.  The  coincidences  of 
cleavage  point  merely  to  a  readily  intelligible  historical 
association.    If  the  Bantu  and  Bushmen  are  so  sharply 

13  The  Fijians,  for  instance,  while  of  Papuan  (negroid)  race, 
are  Polynesian  rather  than  Melanesian  in  their  cultural  and  lin- 
guistic affinities. 

14  Though  even  here  there  is  some  significant  overlapping.  The 
southernmost  Eskimo  of  Alaska  were  assimilated  in  culture  to 
their  Tlingit  neighbors.  In  northeastern  Siberia,  too,  there  is 
no  sharp  cultural  line  between  the  Eskimo  and  the  Chukchi. 


LANGUAGE,  RACE  AND  CULTURE  231 

differentiated  in  all  respects,  the  reason  is  simply  that 
the  former  are  relatively  recent  arrivals  in  southern  Af- 
rica. The  two  peoples  developed  in  complete  isolation 
from  each  other ;  their  present  propinquity  is  too  recent 
for  the  slow  process  of  cultural  and  racial  assimilation 
to  have  set  in  very  powerfully.  As  we  go  back  in  time, 
we  shall  have  to  assume  that  relatively  scanty  popula- 
tions occupied  large  territories  for  untold  generations 
and  that  contact  with  other  masses  of  population  was 
not  as  insistent  and  prolonged  as  it  later  became.  The 
geographical  and  historical  isolation  that  brought  about 
race  differentiations  was  naturally  favorable  also  to  far- 
reaching  variations  in  language  and  culture.  The  very 
fact  that  races  and  cultures  which  are  brought  into  his- 
torical contact  tend  to  assimilate  in  the  long  run,  while 
neighboring  languages  assimilate  each  other  only  casually 
and  in  superficial  respects,^^  indicates  that  there  is  no 
profound  causal  relation  between  the  development  of 
language  and  the  specific  development  of  race  and  of 
culture. 

But  surely,  the  wary  reader  will  object,  there  must 
be  some  relation  between  language  and  culture,  and  be- 
tween language  and  at  least  that  intangible  aspect  of  race 
that  we  call  "temperament."  Is  it  not  inconceivable 
that  the  particular  collective  qualities  of  mind  that  have 
fashioned  a  culture  are  not  precisely  the  same  as  were 
responsible  for  the  growth  of  a  particular  linguistic 
morphology?  This  question  takes  us  into  the  heart  of 
the  most  difficult  problems  of  social  psychology.  It  is 
doubtful  if  any  one  has  yet  attained  to  sufficient  clarity 
on  the  nature  of  the  historical  process  and  on  the  ulti- 
mate psychological  factors  involved  in  linguistic  and  cul- 

15  The  supersession  of  one  language  by  another  is  of  course  not 
truly  a  matter  of  linguistic  assimilation. 


232  LANGUAGE 

tural  drifts  to  answer  it  intelligently.  I  can  only  very 
briefly  set  forth  my  own  views,  or  rather  my  general 
attitude.  It  would  be  very  difficult  to  prove  that  "tem- 
perament," the  general  emotional  disposition  of  a  peo- 
ple,^'' is  basically  responsible  for  the  slant  and  drift  of 
a  culture,  however  much  it  may  manifest  itself  in  an 
individual's  handling  of  the  elements  of  that  culture. 
But  granted  that  temperament  has  a  certain  value  for 
the  shaping  of  culture,  difficult  though  it  be  to  say  just 
how,  it  does  not  follow  that  it  has  the  same  value  for 
the  shaping  of  language.  It  is  impossible  to  show  that 
the  form  of  a  language  has  the  slightest  connection  with 
national  temperament.  Its  line  of  variation,  its  drift, 
runs  inexorably  in  the  channel  ordained  for  it  by  its  his- 
toric antecedents;  it  is  as  regardless  of  the  feelings  and 
sentiments  of  its  speakers  as  is  the  course  of  a  river  of  the 
atmospheric  humors  of  the  landscape.  I  am  convinced 
that  it  is  futile  to  look  in  linguistic  structure  for  dif- 
ferences corresponding  to  the  temperamental  variationts 
which  are  supposed  to  be  correlated  with  race.  In  this 
connection  it  is  well  to  remember  that  the  emotional 
aspect  of  our  psychic  life  is  but  meagerly  expressed  in 
the  build  of  language.^^ 

Language  and  our  thought-grooves  are  inextricably  in- 
terwoven, are,  in  a  sense,  one  and  the  same.  As  there  is 
nothing  to  show  that  there  are  significant  racial  differ- 

16  "Temperament"  is  a  difficult  term  to  work  with.  A  great 
deal  of  what  is  loosely  charged  to  national  "temperament"  is 
really  notliing  but  customary  behavior,  the  effect  of  traditional 
ideals  of  conduct.  In  a  culture,  for  instance,  that  does  not  look 
kindly  upon  demonstrativeness,  the  natural  tendency  to  the  dis- 
play of  emotion  becomes  more  than  normally  inhibited.  It  would 
be  quite  misleading  to  argue  from  tlie  customary  inhibition,  a 
cultural  fact,  to  the  native  temperament.  But  ordinarily  we  can 
get  at  human  conduct  only  as  it  is  culturally  modifie'.  Tem- 
perament in  the  raw  is  a  highly  elusive  thing. 

17  See  pages  39,  40. 


LANGUAGE,  RACE  AND  CULTURE  233 

ences  in  the  fundamental  conformation  of  thought,  it 
follows  that  the  infinite  variability  of  linguistic  form, 
another  name  for  the  infinite  variability  of  the  actual 
process  of  thought,  cannot  be  an  index  of  such  significant 
racial  differences.  This  is  only  apparently  a  paradox. 
The  latent  content  of  all  languages  is  the  same — the  in- 
tuitive science  of  experience.  It  is  the  manifest  form 
that  is  never  twice  the  same,  for  this  form,  which  we  call 
linguistic  morphology,  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  a 
collective  art  of  thought,  an  art  denuded  of  the  irrele- 
vancies  of  individual  sentiment.  At  last  analysis,  then, 
language  can  no  more  flow  from  race  as  such  than  can 
the  sonnet  form. 

Nor  can  I  believe  that  culture  and  language  are  in 
any  true  sense  causally  related.  Culture  may  be  defined 
as  what  a  society  does  and  thinks.  Language  is  a  par- 
ticular how  of  thought.  It  is  difficult  to  see  what  par- 
ticular causal  relations  may  be  expected  to  subsist  be- 
tween a  selected  inventory  of  experience  (culture,  a 
pignificant  selection  made  by  society)  and  the  particular 
manner  in  which  the  society  expresses  all  experience. 
The  drift  of  culture,  another  way  of  saying  history,  is  a 
complex  series  of  changes  in  society's  selected  inventory 
■ — additions,  losses,  changes  of  emphasis  and  relation. 
The  drift  of  language  is  not  properly  concerned  with 
changes  of  content  at  all,  merely  with  changes  in  formal 
expression.  It  is  possible,  in  thought,  to  change  every 
sound,  word,  and  concrete  concept  of  a  language  with- 
out changing  its  inner  actuality  in  the  least,  just  as  one 
can  pour  into  a  fixed  mold  water  or  plaster  or  molten 
gold.  If  it  can  be  shown  that  culture  has  an  innate  form, 
a  series  of  contours,  quite  apart  from  subject-matter  of 
any  description  whatsoever,  we  have  a  something  in 
culture  that  may  serve  as  a  term  of  comparison  with 


234  LANGUAGE 

and  possibly  a  means  of  relating  it  to  language.  But 
until  such  purely  formal  patterns  of  culture  are  dis- 
covered and  laid  bare,  we  shall  do  well  to  hold  the  drifts 
of  language  and  of  culture  to  be  non-comparable  and 
unrelated  processes.  From  this  it  follows  that  all  at- 
tempts to  connect  particular  types  of  linguistic  mor- 
phology with  certain  correlated  stages  of  cultural  devel- 
opment are  vain.  Rightly  understood,  such  correla- 
tions are  rubbish.  The  merest  coup  d'oeil  verifies  our 
theoretical  argument  on  this  point.  Both  simple  and 
complex  types  of  language  of  an  indefinite  number  of 
varieties  may  be  found  spoken  at  any  desired  level  of 
cultural  advance.  When  it  comes  to  linguistic  form, 
Plato  walks  with  the  Macedonian  swineherd,  Confuciua 
with  the  head-hunting  savage  of  Assam. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  the  mere  content  of  lan- 
guage is  intimately  related  to  culture.  A  society  that 
has  no  knowledge  of  theosophy  need  have  no  name  for  it ; 
aborigines  that  had  never  seen  or  heard  of  a  horse  were 
compelled  to  invent  or  borrow  a  word  for  the  animal 
when  they  made  his  acquaintance.  In  the  sense  that  the 
vocabulary  of  a  language  more  or  less  faithfully  reflects 
the  culture  whose  purposes  it  serves  it  is  perfectly  true 
that  the  history  of  language  and  the  history  of  culture 
move  along  parallel  lines.  But  this  superficial  and  ex- 
traneous kind  of  parallelism  is  of  no  real  interest  to  the 
linguist  except  in  so  far  as  the  growth  or  borrowing  of 
new  words  incidentally  throws  light  on  the  formal  trends 
of  the  language.  The  linguistic  student  should  never 
make  the  mistake  of  identifying  a  language  with  its  dic- 
tionary. 

If  both  this  and  the  preceding  chapter  have  been 
largely  negative  in  their  contentions,  I  believe  that  they 
have  been  healthily  so.    There  is  perhaps  no  better  way 


LANGUAGE,  RACE  AND  CULTURE  235 

to  learn  the  essential  nature  of  speech  than  to  realize 
what  it  is  not  and  what  it  does  not  do.  Its  superficial 
connections  with  other  historic  processes  are  so  close 
that  it  needs  to  be  shaken  free  of  them  if  we  are  to  see 
it  in  its  own  right.  Everything  that  we  have  so  far 
seen  to  be  true  of  language  points  to  the  fact  that  it  is 
the  most  significant  and  colossal  work  that  the  human 
spirit  has  evolved — nothing  short  of  a  finished  form  of 
expression  for  all  communicable  experience.  This  form 
may  be  endlessly  varied  by  the  individual  without 
thereby  losing  its  distinctive  contours;  and  it  is  con- 
stantly reshaping  itself  as  is  all  art.  Language  is  the 
most  massive  and  inclusive  art  we  know,  a  mountainous 
and  anonymous  work  of  unconscious  generations. 


XI 

LANGUAGE  AND  LITERATURE 

Languages  are  more  to  us  than  systems  of  thought- 
transference.  They  are  invisible  garments  that  drape 
themselves  about  our  spirit  and  give  a  predetermined 
form  to  all  its  symbolic  expression.  When  the  expres- 
sion is  of  unusual  significance,  we  call  it  literature.^  Art 
is  so  personal  an  expression  that  we  do  not  like  to  feel 
that  it  is  bound  to  predetermined  form  of  any  sort.  The 
possibilities  of  individual  expression  are  infinite,  lan- 
guage in  particular  is  the  most  fluid  of  mediums.  Yet 
some  limitation  there  must  be  to  this  freedom,  some  re- 
sistance of  the  medium.  In  great  art  there  is  the  illu- 
sion of  absolute  freedom.  The  formal  restraints  imposed 
by  the  material — paint,  black  and  white,  marble,  piano 
tones,  or  whatever  it  may  be — are  not  perceived ;  it  is  as 
though  there  were  a  limitless  margin  of  elbow-room  be- 
tween the  artist's  fullest  utilization  of  form  and  the 
most  that  the  material  is  innately  capable  of.  The  artist 
has  intuitively  surrendered  to  the  inescapable  tyranny 
of  the  material,  made  its  brute  nature  fuse  easily  with 
his  conception.^     The  material  "disappears"  precisely 

1 1  can  hardly  stop  to  define  just  what  kind  of  expression  is 
"significant"  enough  to  be  called  art  or  literature.  Besides,  I  do 
not  exactly  know.     We  shall  have  to  take  literature  for  granted. 

2  This  "intuitive  surrender"  has  nothing  to  do  with  subservience 
to  artistic  convention.  More  than  one  revolt  in  modern  art  has 
been  dominated  by  the  desire  to  get  out  of  the  material  just 
what  it  is  really  capable  of.  The  impressionist  wants  light  and 
color  because  paint  can  give  him  just  these;  "literature"  in  paint- 
ing, the  sentimental  suggestion  of  a  "story,"  is  otfensive  to  him 

236 


LANGUAGE  AND  LITERATURE  237 

because  there  is  nothing  in  the  artist's  conception  to  in- 
dicate that  any  other  material  exists.  For  the  time  be- 
ing, he,  and  we  with  him,  move  in  the  artistic  medium 
as  a  fish  moves  in  the  water,  oblivious  of  the  existence 
of  an  alien  atmosphere.  No  sooner,  however,  does  the 
artist  transgress  the  law  of  his  medium  than  we  realize 
with  a  start  that  there  is  a  medium  to  obey. 

Language  is  the  medium  of  literature  as  marble  or 
bronze  or  clay  are  the  materials  of  the  sculptor.  Since 
every  language  has  its  distinctive  peculiarities,  the  in- 
nate formal  limitations — and  possibilities — of  one  liter- 
ature are  never  quite  the  same  as  those  of  another.  The 
literature  fashioned  out  of  the  form  and  substance  of  a 
language  has  the  color  and  the  texture  of  its  matrix. 
The  literary  artist  may  never  be  conscious  of  just  how 
he  is  hindered  or  helped  or  otherwise  guided  by  the 
matrix,  but  when  it  is  a  question  of  translating  his  work 
into  another  language,  the  nature  of  the  original  matrix 
manifests  itself  at  once.  All  his  effects  have  been  cal- 
culated, or  intuitively  felt,  with  reference  to  the  formal 
"genius"  of  his  own  language;  they  cannot  be  carried 
over  without  loss  or  modification.  Croce  ^  is  therefore 
perfectly  right  in  saying  that  a  work  of  literary  art 
can  never  be  translated.  Nevertheless  literature  does  get 
itself  translated,  sometimes  with  astonishing  adequacy. 
This  brings  up  the  question  whether  in  the  art  of  lit- 
erature there  are  not  intertwined  two  distinct  kinds  or 
levels  of  art — a  generalized,  non-linguistic  art,  which 
can  be  transferred  without  loss  into  an  alien  linguistic 
medium,  and  a  specifically  linguistic  art  that  is  not  trans- 

because  he  does  not  want  the  virtue  of  his  particular  form  to  be 
dimmed  by  shadows  from  another  medium.  Similarly,  the  poet, 
as  never  before,  insists  that  words  mean  just  what  they  really 
mean. 

3  See  Benedetto  Croce,  "Esthetic." 


238  LANGUAGE 

ferable.*  I  believe  the  distinction  is  entirely  valid, 
though  we  never  get  the  two  levels  pure  in  practice. 
Literature  moves  in  language  as  a  medium,  but  that 
medium  comprises  two  layers,  the  latent  content  of  lan- 
guage— our  intuitive  record  of  experience — and  the  par- 
ticular conformation  of  a  given  language — the  specific 
how  of  our  record  of  experience.  Literature  that  draws 
its  sustenance  mainly — never  entirely — from  the  lower 
level,  say  a  play  of  Shakespeare's,  is  translatable  with- 
out too  great  a  loss  of  character.  If  it  moves  in  the 
upper  rather  than  in  the  lower  level — a  fair  example  is 
a  lyric  of  Swinburne's — it  is  as  good  as  untranslatable. 
Both  types  of  literary  expression  may  be  great  or 
mediocre. 

There  is  really  no  mystery  in  the  distinction.  It  can 
be  clarified  a  little  by  comparing  literature  with  science. 
A  scientific  truth  is  impersonal,  in  its  essence  it  is  un- 
tinctured  by  the  particular  linguistic  medium  in  which 
it  finds  expression.  It  can  as  readily  deliver  its  mes- 
sage in  Chinese  ^  as  in  English.  Nevertheless  it  must 
have  some  expression,  and  that  expression  must  needs 
be  a  linguistic  one.  Indeed  the  apprehension  of  the  sci- 
entific truth  is  itself  a  linguistic  process,  for  thought  is 

4  The  question  of  the  transferability  of  art  productions  seems 
to  me  to  be  of  genuine  theoretic  interest.  For  all  that  we  speak 
of  the  sacrosanct  uniqueness  of  a  given  art  work,  we  know  very 
well,  though  we  do  not  always  admit  it,  that  not  all  productions 
are  equally  intractable  to  transference.  A  Chopin  etude  is  in- 
violate; it  moves  altogether  in  the  world  of  piano  tone.  A  Bach 
fugue  is  transferable  into  another  set  of  musical  timbres  with- 
out serious  loss  of  esthetic  significance.  Chopin  plays  with  the 
language  of  the  piano  as  though  no  other  lanfjiiage  existed  (the 
medium  "disappears")  ;  Bach  speaks  the  langnage  of  the  piano 
as  a  handy  means  of  giving  outward  expression  to  a  conception 
wrought   in   the  generalized  language   of  tone. 

5  i^rovided,  of  course,  Chinese  is  careful  to  provide  itself  with 
the  necessary  scientific  vocabulary.  Like  any  other  language, 
it  can  do  so  without  serious  diflSculty  if  the  need  arises. 


LANGUAGE  AND  LITERATURE  239 

nothing  but  language  denuded  of  its  outward  garb.    The 
proper  medium  of  scientific  expression  is  therefore  a  gen- 
eralized language  that  may  be  defined  as  a  symbolic 
algebra  of  which  all  known  languages  are  translations. 
One  can  adequately  translate  scientific  literature  because 
the  original  scientific  expression  is  itself  a  translation. 
Literary  expression  is  personal  and  concrete,  but  this 
does  not  mean  that  its  significance  is  altogether  bound  up 
with  the  accidental  qualities  of  the  medium.     A  truly 
deep  symbolism,  for  instance,  does  not  depend  on  the 
verbal  associations  of  a  particular  language  but  rests 
securely  on   an  intuitive   basis   that  underlies  all  lin- 
guistic   expression.     The    artist's    "intuition,"    to    use 
Croce's  term,  is  immediately  fashioned  out  of  a  gener- 
alized    human     experience — thought     and     feeling — of 
which  his  own  individual  experience  is  a  highly  per- 
sonalized selection.    The  thought  relations  in  this  deeper 
level  have  no  specific  linguistic  vesture ;  the  rhythms  are 
free,  not  bound,  in  the  first  instance,  to  the  traditional 
rhythms  of  the  artist's  language.     Certain  artists  whose 
spirit  moves  largely  in  the  non-linguistic  (better,  in  the 
generalized  linguistic)    layer  even  find  a  certain  diffi- 
culty in  getting  themselves  expressed  in  the  rigidly  set 
terms  of  their  accepted  idiom.     One  feels  that  they  are 
unconsciously  striving  for  a  generalized  art  language,  a 
literary  algebra,  that  is  related  to  the  sum  of  all  known 
languages  as  a  perfect  mathematical  symbolism  is  re- 
lated to  all  the  roundabout  reports  of  mathematical  rela- 
tions that  normal  speech  is  capable  of  conveying.    Their 
art  expression  is  frequently  strained,  it  sounds  at  times 
like  a  translation  from  an  unknown  original — which,  in- 
deed, is  precisely  what  it  is.     These  artists — Whitmans 
and  Brownings — impress  us  rather  by  the  greatness  of 
their  spirit  than  the  felicity  of  their  art.    Their  relative 


240  LANGUAGE 

failure  is  of  the  greatest  diagnostic  value  as  an  index  of 
the  pervasive  presence  in  literature  of  a  larger,  more  in- 
tuitive linguistic  medium  than  any  particular  language. 

Nevertheless,  human  expression  being  what  it  is,  the 
greatest — or  shall  we  say  the  most  satisfying — literary 
artists,  the  Shakespeares  and  Heines,  are  those  who  have 
known  subconsciously  to  fit  or  trim  the  deeper  intuition 
to  the  provincial  accents  of  their  daily  speech.  In  them 
there  is  no  effect  of  strain.  Their  personal  "intuition" 
appears  as  a  completed  synthesis  of  the  absolute  art  of 
intuition  and  the  innate,  specialized  art  of  the  lin- 
guistic medium.  With  Heine,  for  instance,  one  is  under 
the  illusion  that  the  universe  speaks  German.  The  ma- 
terial ''disappears." 

Every  language  is  itself  a  collective  art  of  expression. 
There  is  concealed  in  it  a  particular  set  of  esthetic  fac- 
tors— phonetic,  rhythmic,  symbolic,  morphological — 
which  it  does  not  completely  share  with  any  other  lan- 
guage. These  factors  may  either  merge  their  potencies 
with  those  of  that  unknown,  absolute  language  to  which 
I  have  referred — this  is  the  method  of  Shakespeare  and 
Heine — or  they  may  weave  a  private,  technical  art  fabric 
of  their  own,  the  innate  art  of  the  language  intensified 
or  sublimated.  The  latter  type,  the  more  technically 
"literary"  art  of  Swinburne  and  of  hosts  of  delicate 
"minor"  poets,  is  too  fragile  for  endurance.  It  is  built 
out  of  spiritualized  material,  not  out  of  spirit.  The 
successes  of  the  Swinburnes  are  as  valuable  for  diagnostic 
purposes  as  the  semi-failures  of  the  Brownings.  They 
show  to  what  extent  literary  art  may  lean  on  the  col- 
lective art  of  the  language  itself.  The  more  extreme 
technical  practitioners  may  so  over-individualize  this  col- 
lective art  as  to  make  it  almost  unendurable.     One  is 


LANGUAGE  AND  LITERATURE  241 

not  always  thankful  to  have  one 's  flesh  and  blood  frozen 
to  ivory. 

An  artist  must  utilize  the  native  esthetic  resources  of 
his  speech.  He  may  be  thankful  if  the  given  palette  of 
colors  is  rich,  if  the  springboard  is  light.  But  he  de- 
serves no  special  credit  for  felicities  that  are  the  lan- 
guage's own.  We  must  take  for  granted  this  language 
with  all  its  qualities  of  flexibility  or  rigidity  and  see 
the  artist's  work  in  relation  to  it.  A  cathedral  on  the 
lowlands  is  higher  than  a  stick  on  Mont  Blanc.  In  other 
words,  we  must  not  commit  the  folly  of  admiring  a 
French  sonnet  because  the  vowels  are  more  sonorous 
than  our  own  or  of  condemning  Nietzsche's  prose  be- 
cause it  harbors  in  its  texture  combinations  of  consonants 
that  would  affright  on  English  soil.  To  so  judge  litera- 
ture would  be  tantamount  to  loving  "Tristan  und  Isolde" 
because  one  is  fond  of  the  timbre  of  horns.  There  are 
certain  things  that  one  language  can  do  supremely  well 
which  it  would  be  almost  vain  for  another  to  attempt. 
Generally  there  are  compensations.  The  vocalism  of 
English  is  an  inherently  drabber  thing  than  the  vowel 
scale  of  French,  yet  English  compensates  for  this  draw- 
back by  its  greater  rhythmical  alertness.  It  is  even 
doubtful  if  the  innate  sonority  of  a  phonetic  system 
counts  for  as  much,  as  esthetic  determinant,  as  the  rela- 
tions between  the  sounds,  the  total  gamut  of  their  simi- 
larities and  contrasts.  As  long  as  the  artist  has  the 
wherewithal  to  lay  out  his  sequences  and  rhythms,  it 
matters  little  what  are  the  sensuous  qualities  of  the  ele- 
ments of  his  material. 

The  phonetic  groundwork  of  a  language,  however,  is 
only  one  of  the  features  that  give  its  literature  a  cer- 
tain direction.    Far  more  important  are  its  morphologi- 


242  LANGUAGE 

eal  peculiarities.  It  makes  a  great  deal  of  difference 
for  the  development  of  style  if  the  language  can  or  can- 
not create  compound  words,  if  its  structure  is  synthetic 
or  analytic,  if  the  words  of  its  sentences  have  considera- 
ble freedom  of  position  or  are  compelled  to  fall  into  a 
rigidly  determined  sequence.  The  major  characteristics 
of  style,  in  so  far  as  style  is  a  technical  matter  of  the 
building  and  placing  of  words,  are  given  by  the  language 
itself,  quite  as  inescapably,  indeed,  as  the  general  acoustic 
effect  of  verse  is  given  by  the  sounds  and  natural  ac- 
cents of  the  language.  These  necessary  fundamentals 
of  style  are  hardly  felt  by  the  artist  to  constrain  his 
individuality  of  expression.  They  rather  point  the  way 
to  those  stylistic  developments  that  most  suit  the  natural 
bent  of  the  language.  It  is  not  in  the  least  likely  that  a 
truly  great  style  can  seriously  oppose  itself  to  the  basic 
form  patterns  of  the  language.  It  not  only  incorporates 
them,  it  builds  on  them.  The  merit  of  such  a  style  as 
W.  H.  Hudson's  or  George  Moore's"  is  that  it  does  with 
ease  and  economy  what  the  language  is  always  trying  to 
do.  Carlylese,  though  individual  and  vigorous,  is  yet 
not  style ;  it  is  a  Teutonic  mannerism.  Nor  is  the  prose 
of  Milton  and  his  contemporaries  strictly  English ;  it  is 
semi-Latin  done  into  magnificent  English  words. 

It  is  strange  how  long  it  has  taken  the  European  lit- 
eratures to  learn  that  style  is  not  an  absolute,  a  some- 
thing that  is  to  be  imposed  on  the  language  from  Greek 
or  Latin  models,  but  merely  the  language  itself,  run- 
ning in  its  natural  grooves,  and  with  enough  of  an  indi- 
vidual accent  to  allow  the  artist's  personality  to  be  felt 
as  a  presence,  not  as  an  acrobat.  "We  understand  more 
clearly  now  that  what  is  effective  and  beautiful  in  one 

fi  Aside   from    iiidividnal    peculiarities   of  diction,   the   selection 
and  evaluation  of  particular  words  as  such. 


LANGUAGE  AND  LITERATURE  243 

language  is  a  vice  in  another.  Latin  and  Eskimo,  with 
their  highly  inflected  forms,  lend  themselves  to  an  elabo- 
rately periodic  structure  that  would  be  boring  in  Eng- 
lish. English  allows,  even  demands,  a  looseness  that 
would  be  insipid  in  Chinese.  And  Chinese,  with  its  un- 
modified words  and  rigid  sequences,  has  a  compactness 
of  phrase,  a  terse  parallelism,  and  a  silent  suggestiveness 
that  would  be  too  tart,  too  mathematical,  for  the  English 
genius.  While  we  cannot  assimilate  the  luxurious  periods 
of  Latin  nor  the  pointilliste  style  of  the  Chinese  classics, 
we  can  enter  sympathetically  into  the  spirit  of  these 
alien  techniques. 

I  believe  that  any  English  poet  of  to-day  would  be 
thankful  for  the  concision  that  a  Chinese  poetaster  at- 
tains without  effort.     Here  is  an  example :  ^ 

Wu-river  *   stream  mouth  evening  sun  sink, 
North  look  Liao-Tung,^  not  see  home. 
Steam  whistle  sevei-al  noise,  sky-earth  boundless, 
Float  float  one  reed  out  Middle-Kingdom. 

These  twenty-eight  syllables  may  be  clumsily  interpreted : 
"At  the  mouth  of  the  Yangtsze  River,  as  the  sun  is 
about  to  sink,  I  look  north  toward  Liao-Tung  but  do  not 
see  my  home.  The  steam-whistle  shrills  several  times  on 
the  boundless  expanse  where  meet  sky  and  earth.  The 
steamer,  floating  gently  like  a  hollow  reed,  sails  out  of 
the  Middle  Kingdom."  ^*^  But  we  must  not  envy  Chinese 
its  terseness  unduly.  Our  more  sprawling  mode  of  ex- 
pression is  capable  of  its  own  beauties,  and  the  more 

7  Not  by  any  means  a  great  poem,  merely  a  bit  of  occasional 
verse  written  by  a  young  Chinese  friend  of  mine  when  lie  left 
Shanghai  for  Canada. 

8  The  old  name  of  the  country  about  the  moutk  of  the  Yangtsze. 

9  A  province  of  Manchuria. 
1"  I.e.,  China. 


244  LANGUAGE 

compact  luxuriance  of  Latin  style  has  its  loveliness  too. 
There  are  almost  as  many  natural  ideals  of  literary  style 
as  there  are  languages.  Most  of  these  are  merely  po- 
tential, awaiting  the  hand  of  artists  who  will  never  come. 
And  yet  in  the  recorded  texts  of  primitive  tradition 
and  song  there  are  many  passages  of  unique  vigor  and 
beauty.  The  structure  of  the  language  often  forces  an 
assemblage  of  concepts  that  impresses  us  as  a  stylistic 
discovery.  Single  Algonkin  words  are  like  tiny  imagist 
poems.  We  must  be  careful  not  to  exaggerate  a  fresh- 
ness of  content  that  is  at  least  half  due  to  our  fresh- 
ness of  approach,  but  the  possibility  is  indicated  none 
the  less  of  utterly  alien  literary  styles,  each  distinctive 
with  its  disclosure  of  the  search  of  the  human  spirit  for 
beautiful  form. 

Probably  nothing  better  illustrates  the  formal  depend- 
ence of  literature  on  language  than  the  prosodic  aspect 
of  poetry.  Quantitative  verse  was  entirely  natural  to 
the  Greeks,  not  merely  because  poetry  grew  up  in  con- 
nection with  the  chant  and  the  dance,^^  but  because  alter- 
nations of  long  and  short  syllables  were  keenly  live  facts 
in  the  daily  economy  of  the  language.  The  tonal  ac- 
cents, which  were  only  secondarily  stress  phenomena, 
helped  to  give  the  syllable  its  quantitative  individuality. 
When  the  Greek  meters  were  carried  over  into  Latin 
verse,  there  was  comparativly  little  strain,  for  Latin 
too  was  characterized  by  an  acute  awareness  of  quan- 
titative distinctions.  However,  the  Latin  accent  was 
more  markedly  stressed  than  that  of  Greek.  Probably, 
therefore,  the  purely  quantitative  meters  modeled  after 

11  Poetry  everywhere  is  inseparable  in  its  origins  from  the 
singing  voice  and  the  measure  of  the  dance.  Yet  accentual  and 
syllabic  types  of  verse,  rather  than  quantitative  verse,  seem  to  be 
tlie    prevailing    norms. 


LANGUAGE  AND  LITERATURE  2i5 

the  Greek  were  felt  as  a  shade  more  artificial  than  in 
the  language  of  their  origin.  The  attempt  to  cast  Eng- 
lish verse  into  Latin  and  Greek  molds  has  never  been 
successful.  The  dynamic  basis  of  English  is  not  quan- 
tity,^^  but  stress,  the  alternation  of  accented  and  un- 
accented syllables.  This  fact  gives  English  verse  an 
entirely  different  slant  and  has  determined  the  develop- 
ment of  its  poetic  forms,  is  still  responsible  for  the 
evolution  of  new  forms.  Neither  stress  nor  syllabic 
weight  is  a  very  keen  psychologic  factor  in  the  dynamics 
of  French.  The  syllable  has  great  inherent  sonority  and 
does  not  fluctuate  significantly  as  to  quantity  and  stress. 
Quantitative  or  accentual  metrics  would  be  as  artificial 
in  French  as  stress  metrics  in  classical  Greek  or  quan- 
titative or  purely  syllabic  metrics  in  English.  French 
prosody  was  compelled  to  develop  on  the  basis  of  unit 
syllable-groups.  Assonance,  later  rhyme,  could  not  but 
prove  a  welcome,  an  all  but  necessary,  means  of  articu- 
lating or  sectioning  the  somewhat  spineless  flow  of  son- 
orous syllables.  English  was  hospitable  to  the  French 
suggestion  of  rhyme,  but  did  not  seriously  need  it  in 
its  rhythmic  economy.  Hence  rhyme  has  always  been 
strictly  subordinated  to  stress  as  a  somewhat  decorative 
feature  and  has  been  frequently  dispensed  with.  It  is 
no  psychologic  accident  that  rhyme  came  later  into 
English  than  in  French  and  is  leaving  it  sooner.^^ 
Chinese  verse  has  developed  along  very  much  the  same 
lines  as  French  verse.     The  syllable  is  an  even  more 

12  Quantitative  distinctions  exist  as  an  objective  fact.  They 
have  not  the  same  inner,  psychological  value  that  they  had  in 
Greek. 

13  Verhaeren  was  no  slave  to  the  Alexandrine,  yet  he  remarked 
to  Symons,  a  propos  of  the  translation  of  Les  Aubes,  that  while 
he  approved  of  the  use  of  rhymeless  verse  in  the  English  version, 
he  found  it  "meaningless"  in  French. 


246  LANGUAGE 

integral  and  sonorous  unit  than  in  French,  while  quan- 
tity and  stress  are  too  uncertain  to  form  the  basis  of  a 
metric  system.  Syllable-groups— so  and  so  many  syl- 
lables per  rhythmic  unit— and  rhyme  are  therefore  two 
of  the  controlling  factors  in  Chinese  prosody.  The  third 
factor,  the  alternation  of  syllables  with  level  tone  and 
syllables  with  inflected  (rising  or  falling)  tone,  is  pecu- 
liar to  Chinese. 

To  summarize,  Latin  and  Greek  verse  depends  on  the 
principle  of  contrasting  weights;  English  verse,  on  the 
principle  of  contrasting  stresses;  French  verse,  on  the 
principles  of  number  and  echo ;  Chinese  verse,  on  the 
principles  of  number,  echo,  and  contrasting  pitches. 
Each  of  these  rhythmic  systems  proceeds  from  the  un- 
conscious dynamic  habit  of  the  language,  falling  from 
the  lips  of  the  folk.  Study  carefully  the  phonetic  sys- 
tem of  a  language,  above  all  its  dynamic  features,  and 
you  can  tell  what  kind  of  a  verse  it  has  developed — or,  if 
history  has  played  pranks  with  its  phychology,  what 
kind  of  verse  it  should  have  developed  and  some  day 
will. 

Whatever  be  the  sounds,  accents,  and  forms  of  a  lan- 
guage, however  these  lay  hands  on  the  shape  of  its  lit- 
erature, there  is  a  subtle  law  of  compensations  that  gives 
the  artist  space.  If  he  is  squeezed  a  bit  here,  he  can 
swing  a  free  arm  there.  And  generally  he  has  rope 
enough  to  hang  himself  with,  if  he  must.  It  is  not 
strange  that  this  should  be  so.  Language  is  itself  the 
collective  art  of  expression,  a  summary  of  thousands 
upon  thousands  of  individual  intuitions.  The  individual 
goes  lost  in  the  collective  creation,  but  his  personal  ex- 
pression has  left  some  trace  in  a  certain  give  and  flexi- 
bility that  are  inherent  in  all  collective  works  of  the 
human  spirit.    The  language  is  ready,  or  can  be  quickly 


LANGUAGE  AND  LITERATURE  247 

made  r^ady,  to  define  the  artist's  individuality.  If  no 
literary  artist  appears,  it  is  not  essentially  because  the 
language  is  too  weak  an  instrument,  it  is  because  the  cul- 
ture of  the  people  is  not  favorable  to  the  growth  of  such 
personality  as  seeks  a  truly  individual  verbal  expression 


INDEX 


Note.    Italicized  entries  are  names  of  languages  or  groups  of  languages. 


Abbreviation  of  stem,   26 
Accent,   stress,   26,   36,   48,   55, 

61,      64;      as      grammatical 

process,    82,    83;    importance 

of,    118,    119,    120;    metrical 

value  of,  244,  245,  246 
"Accent,"  44 
"Adam's  apple,"  48 
Adjective,    123,    124,    125 
Affixation,    26,    64,    70-6 
Affixing    languages,     133,     134, 

137 
African  languages,  pitch  in,  55 
Agglutination,  140-3 
Agglutinative    languages,     130, 

136-8,     139,     146,     147,     148, 

150,   151,   155 
Agglutinative-fusional,  148,  150 
Agglutinative-isolating,  148,  150 
Algonkin  languages  (N.  Amer. ) , 

70,  74,  134,  151,  229,  244 
Alpine  race,  223,  225 
Analogical    leveling,    193,    197, 

200-3 
Analytic    tendency,     135,     136, 

148,    150,   151,    154,   216,   217 
Angles,  224,  225 
Anglo-Saxon,  28,  175,  183,  185, 

186-8,  191,  197,  198,  201 
Anglo-Saxon  culture,  229;  race, 

222,  223,  224 
Annamite     (S.    E.    Asia),    66, 

150,  205 
Apache   (N.  Amer.),  71 
Arabic,  76,  77,  135,  151,  207 
Armenian,  163,  212 
Art,  236-40;   language  as,  233, 

235,     240,     241,     246.     247; 

transferability  of,  237,  238 


Articulation,      ease      of,      196; 

types  of,  drift  toward,  194 
Articulations,      laryngeal,      49, 

50;    manner    of   consonantal, 

52,  53;    nasal,   50,   51;    oral, 
51,  52;  place  of  consonantal, 

53,  54;   vocalic,  52 
Art/an.     See  Indo-European. 
Aspect,   114 

Association  of  concepts  and 
speech  elements,  38,  39 

Associations  fundamental  to 
speech,  10,  11 

Athalaskan  languages  (N. 
Amer.),  6,  71,  77,  83,  105, 
209,  214,  219,  228,  229 

Athabaskans,    cultures    of,    228 

Attic  dialect,  162 

Attribution,   101 

Auditory  cycle  in  language,  17 

Australian  culture,   221,   222 

Avestan,  175 

B 

Bach,  238 

Baltic  race,  223,  225,  226 

Bantu  languages  (Africa),  71, 
113,  122,  123,  134,  135,  151, 
221,  230 

Bantus,  230,  231 

Basque   (Pyrenees),  164,  210 

Bengali    (India),   155,   163 

Berber.     See  Hamitic. 

Bohemians,  225 

BontoG  Igorot  (Philippines), 
75,  81 

Borrowing,  morphological,  215- 
17,  219,  220 

Borrowing,  word:  205-7;  pho- 
netic adaptation  in.  210,  211; 
resistances  to,  207-10 


249 


250 


INDEX 


Breton,   225 
Broncliiul  tubes,  48 
Browning,  239,  240 
Buddhism,     influence     of,     207, 

209 
Burmese,   207 

Bushman    (S.   Africa),  55,  230 
Bushmen,    221,    230,    231 


C 


Camlodgian    (S.   E.   Asia),  71, 

75,  108,    134,    150,    155,   207, 
209,  219 

Carlyle,  242 

Carrier  (British  Columbia),  71 
Case,     115.       See    Attrilnition ; 
Object;    Personal    relations; 
Subject. 
Case-system,    history   of,    174-7 
Caucasus,  languages  of,  213 
Celtic.     See  Celts. 
Celtic  languages,   78,   79 
Celts,  224,  225,  226;  Brytlionic, 

224 
"Cerebral"    articulations,    54 
Chaucer,   English   of,   170,    188, 

191,  211 
Chimariko  (N.  California),  73 
Chinese:  absence  of  affixes,  70; 
analytic  character,  135,  136; 
attribution,  101;  compounds, 
67 ;  grammatical  concepts 
illustrated,  96,  97;  influ- 
ence, 205,  207;  "inner  form," 
132;  pitch  accent,  55,  83,  84; 
radical  words,  29 ;  relational 
use  of  material  words,  108; 
sounds,  49;  stress,  119; 
structure,  150,  154,  155; 
style,  243 ;  survivals,  mor- 
phological, 152;  symbolism, 
134;  verse,  2^3,  244,  245; 
word  duplication,  80;  word 
order,  66.  97,  118 
Chinooh     (K    Amer.),    &Q,    73, 

76,  80,    121,    122,    123.    124, 
135.   136.    151,   155,  220 

Chi'peu-unu    (N".  Amer.),  71;   C. 

Indians.  228 
Chopin,  238 


Christianity,    influence   of,    206 

Chukchi,  230 

Classification:  of  concepts, 
rigid,  104,  105;  of  linguistic 
types,  129-56.  See  Structure, 
linguistic. 

"Clicks,"  55,  81 

Composition,  29,  30,  64,  145; 
absence  of,  in  certain  lan- 
guages, 68;  types  of,  69,  70; 
word  order  as  related  to, 
67,   68 

Concepts,    12,   25-30,    31 

Concepts,  grammatical:  analy- 
sis of,  in  sentence,  86-94; 
classification  of,  104,  105, 
109-13;  concrete,  86,  87,  92, 
106;  concrete  relational,  98- 
102,  107;  concreteness  in, 
varying  degree  of,  108,  109; 
derivational,  87,  88,  92.  106; 
derivational,  abstract,  109-11 ; 
essential,  98,  99,  107,  108; 
grouping  of,  non-logical,  94 ; 
lack  of  expression  of  certain, 
97,   98;    pure   relational,   99, 

107,  179;  radical,  88,  92, 
98;  redistribution  of.  94-8; 
relational,  89-03,  98,  99; 
thinning-out  of  significance 
of,  102-4;   types  of,  106,  107, 

108,  109;  typical  categories 
of,  113-15.  See  Structure, 
lingnistic. 

Concord,   100,   120-23 

Concrete    concepts.      See    Con- 

C€T)ts 

Conflict,  167,  168,  171,  172 

Consonantal  change,  26,  61, 
64,  78,  79 

Consonants,  52-4;  combinations 
of,   56 

Co(>rdinate  sentences,  37 

Corean,  205 

Croce,   Benedetto,   237,  239 

Culttire,  221  ;  language  and, 
227-30,  231,  232.  233-5;  lan- 
guage as  aspect  of,  2,  10; 
language,  race  and,  222.  223, 
230,  231;  reflection  of  his- 
tory of,  in  language,  206,  207 


INDEX 


251 


Culture  areas,  221,  222,  228 

D 

Danish,  49,  110,  136,  175,  217 
Demonstrative  ideas,  !)7,  98,  114 
Dental   articulations,  54,   192 
Derivational      concepts.         See 

Concepts. 
Determinative  structure,   135 
Dialects,  causes  of,  160-3;  com- 
promise   between,     159;     dis- 
tinctness  of,    159;    drifts    in, 
diverging,     183,     184;     drifts 
in,  parallel,  184-93;  splitting 
up    of,    163,    164;    unity    of, 
157-9. 
DifTusion,    morphological,    217- 

20 
Diphthongs,   56 

Drift,  linguistic:  160-3,  183, 
184;  components  of,  172-4; 
determinants  of,  in  English, 
168-82;  direction  of,  165, 
166,  183;  direction  of,  illus- 
trated in  English,  166-8; 
examples  of  general,  in  Eng- 
lish, 174-82;  parallelisms  in, 
184-93;  speed  of,  183,  184. 
See  Phonetic  Law;  Phonetic 
processes. 
Duplication  of  words,  79-81 
Dutch,  175,  188,  212,  224 


E 


Elements  of  speech,  24-42 
Emotion,  expression  of:  invol- 
untary, 3;  linguistic,  39- 
41 
English:  agentive  suffix,  87; 
analogical  leveling,  202,  203; 
analytic  tendency,  135,  136, 
216,  217;  animate  and  in- 
animate, 176.  177,  179,  180; 
aspect,  114;  attribution,  101; 
case,  history  of,  169,  170, 
175-7,  179;' compounds,  67, 
68,  69,  70;  concepts,  gram- 
matical, in  sentence,  86-94 ; 
concepts,  passage  of  concrete 


into  derivational,  108,  109 
consonantal  change,  64,  78 
culture  of  speakers  of,  229 
230;  desire,  expression  of 
39;  diminutive  suffix,  87 
drift,  166-82;  duplication 
word,  79,  80;  esthetic  quali 
ties,  241,  243;  feeling-tone 
41,  42;  form,  word,  59,  60 
61 ;  French  influence  on,  206 
207,  208,  210,  211,  215,  216 
function  and  form,  93,  94 
fusing  and  juxtaposing,  137 
138,  139-41;  gender,  100 
Greek  influence  on,  215,  216 
influence  of,  207 ;  influence 
on,  morphological,  lack  of 
deep,  215-17;  interrogative 
words,  170;  invariable  words, 
tendency  to,  180-2,  208;  in- 
fixing, 75;  Latin  influence 
on,  206,  207,  208,  215,  216; 
loan-words,  182;  modality, 
90,  91,  92,  93;  number,  90, 
91;  order,  word.  65.  66.  170, 
171,  177-9,  191,  192;  parts  of 
speech,  123-5;  patterning, 
formal,  62,  63;  personal  re- 
lations, 91,  92,  93;  plionetic 
drifts,  history  of.  184-93, 
194,  197-9;  phonetic  drifts, 
history  of,  184-93,  194,  197-9; 
phonetic  leveling,  193,  194; 
phonetic  pattern,  200,  206; 
plurality,  38,  99,  100,  105, 
106,  202;  race  of  speakers 
of,  223-7 ;  reference,  definite- 
ness  of,  89,  90,  92,  93;  re- 
lational words,  32 ;  relations, 
genetic,  163,  175,  183,  218; 
rhythm,  171,  172;  sentence, 
analysis  of,  37 ;  sentence,  de- 
pendence of  word  on,  116; 
sound-imitative  words,  6,  80; 
sounds,  44,  45,  49.  51.  53.  54, 
56,  57;  stress  and  pitch,  36, 
55,  83;  structure,  151.  180; 
survivals,  morphological,  149, 
152;  symbolism,  134;  syn- 
tactic adhesions,  117.  118; 
syntactic  values,  transfer  of, 


252 


INDEX 


120;  tense,  91,  93,  102,  103, 
104;  verb,  syntactic  rela- 
tions of,  115;  verse,  245,  24G; 
vocalic  change,  70;  word  and 
element,  analysis  of,  25,  26, 
27,  28,  29,  30,  35 

English,  Middle,  175,  176,  188, 
191,  201,  202,  203 

Enj?lish  people,  223,  224 

Eshimo,  60,  68,  70,  74,  118, 
134,   135,   230,  243 

Eskimos,  230 

Eice  (Guinea  coast,  Africa), 
80,  84,  150,   154,  155 

Expiratory  sounds,  55 

"Explosives,"  62 


F 


Faucal  position,  53 

Feeling-tones  of   words,  41,  42 

Fijians,  230 

Finnish,  135,  155,  219 

Finns,   226 

Flemish,  212 

"Foot,  feet"  (English),  history 
of,  184-93,  197-9,  201, 
202 

Form,  cultural,  233,  234;  feel- 
ing of  langiiage  for,  58,  62, 
63,  152,  153,  210,  220;  "in- 
ner," 132,  133 

Form,  linguistic:  conservatism 
of,  102-4;  differences  of,  me- 
chanical origin  of,  105,  100; 
elaboration  of,  reasons  for, 
102-6;  function  and,  inde- 
pendence of,  59-63,  93,  94; 
grammatical  concepts  em- 
bodied in,  86-12G;  gram- 
matical processes  embodying, 
59-85 ;  permanence  of  differ- 
ent aspects  of,  relative,  153- 
6;  twofold  consideration  of, 
59-61.  See  Structure,  lin- 
guistic. 

Form-classes,  105,  113.  See 
Gender. 

Formal  units  of  speech,   33 

"Formlessness,  inner,"  132,  133 

Fox  (N.  Amer.),  74 


French :  analytical  tendency, 
135,  136,  137;  esthetic  quali- 
ties, 241;  gender,  102,  104, 
113;  influence,  205,  206,  207, 
208,  209,  210,  211,  212,  215, 
216;  order,  word,  67;  plu- 
rality, 99;  sounds,  51,  212; 
sounds  as  words,  single,  24; 
stress,  55,  118;  structure, 
151,  154;  tense  forms,  103; 
verse,  245,  246 

French,   Norman,    224 

French  people,  224,  225 

Freud,  168 

Fricatives,  52 

Frisian,   175,  224 

Fid    (Soudan),  79,  81 

Function,  independence  of  form 
and,   59-63,   93,   94 

Functional  units  of  speech,  33 

Fusion,  137,  138,  139,  140,  141, 
149 

Fusional  languages,  147,  150, 
151.     See  Fusion. 

Fusioiial-agglutinative,  148, 

150,   151 

Fusional-isolating,   148,   150 

"Fuss,  Fiisse"  (German),  his- 
tory of,  184,  185,  191-3,  197- 
99 


G 


Gaelic,  225 

Gender,  100-2,  113 

German:  French  influence  on, 
208,  209,  212;  grammatical 
concepts  in  sentence,  95; 
Latin  influence  on,  206,  208; 
phonetic  drifts,  history  of, 
184,  18,5,  188,  191-3,  197-9; 
plurality,  100;  relations,  175, 
183;  soimd-imitative  words, 
6;  sounds,  56,  212;  tense 
forms,  103;  "umlaut,"  202, 
203,  204;  unanalvzable  words, 
resistance  to,  208,  209 

German,  High,  224 

German,  Middle  High,  184,  185, 
192,  204 


INDEX 


253 


German,    Old    High,    175,    184, 

185,  192,   194 

Germanic    languages,    175,    183, 

184,   185,    186,   206,  212,   226 

Germanic,  West,  175,  184,  185, 

186,  187,   191,   192,  224 
Germans,   224,   225,   226 
Gesture   languages,   20,   21 
Ginneken,  Jac  van,  40 
Glottal    cords,    48;    action    of, 

48-50 

Glottal  stop,  49 

Gothic,  82,  175,  184 

Grammar,  39 

Grammatical  element,  26-32 

Grammatical  concepts.  See  Co7i- 
cepts,  grammatical. 

Grammatical  processes,  classi- 
fied by,  languages,  133-5; 
particular,  development  by 
each  langiiage  of,  62,  63 ; 
types  of,  63,  64;  variety  of, 
use  in  one  language  of,  61,  62 

Greek,  dialectic  history  of,  162 

Greek,  classical:  affixing,  137; 
compounds,  67,  68 ;  concord, 
121;  infixing,  75;  influence, 
207,  215,  216;  pitch  accent, 
83;  plurality,  100;  redupli- 
cated perfects,  82,  216; 
stress,  82,  83;  structure, 
139,  151,  152;  synthetic  char- 
acter, 137;   verse,  244,  246 

Greek,  modern,  137,  163,  194, 
212 


H 


Haida   (British  Columbia),  56, 

57,    150,  219,   229 
Hamitio  languages  (N".  Africa), 

77,  219,  221 
Hausa    (Soudan),    81 
Hebrew,    61,    62,    73,    76,    151, 

207 
Heine,  240 

Hesitation,   172,   173,   183 
History,    linguistic,     153-6,     7- 

204 
Eokan  languages    (N.  Amer.), 

220,  229 


Hottentot    (S.  Africa),   55,   81, 

70,  80,  81 
Hudson,  W.  H.,  242 
Humming,  50 

Hupa    (N.  California),  71,  72 
Hupa  Indians,  228 


Icelandic,  Old,  175 

India,  languages  of,  54 

Indians,  American,  languages 
of,  34,  35,  49,  51,  56,  57,  68, 
84,  85,  105,  130,  212,  213. 
See  also  Algonkin;  Atlia^ 
iaskan;  Chimariko ;  Chinook/ 
Eskimo;  Fox;  Haida;  Hokan; 
Hitpa;  Iroquois;  Karok; 
Kivakiutl;  Nahuatl;  Nass; 
Navaho;  Nootka;  Ojibwa; 
Paitite;  Sahaptin;  Salinan; 
Shasta;  Siouan;  Sioxix ;  Tak- 
elma;  Tlingit ;  Tsimshian; 
Washo;  Yana;  Yakuts; 
Yurok. 

Indo-Chinese  languages,  155, 
164 

Indo-European,  24,  75,  82,  163, 
164,   174,   175,   186,   200,  226 

Indo-Iranian  languages,  175, 
212 

Infixes,  26,  64,  75,  76 

Inflection.  See  Inflective  lan- 
guages. 

Inflective  languages,  130,  136- 
41,  143,  144,  14G,  155 

Influence,  cultural,  reflected  in 
language,  205-10;  morpho- 
logical, of  alien  language, 
215-17,  220;  phonetic,  of 
alien  language,  210-15 

Inspiratory  sounds,  65 

Interjections,  4,  5 

Irish,   224 

Irish,  78,  79,  163,  218 

Iroquois    (N.  Amer.),  69,  70 

Isolating  languages,  130,  133, 
147,  150 

Italian,  54,  55,  137,  163 

"Its,"  history  of,  167,  176,  177 


254 


INDEX 


Japanese,  205,  207 
Jutes,  224 

Juxtaposing.       See    Agglutinate 
tion. 


Karok  (N.  California),  220, 
229;   K.  Indians,  227 

Khmer.     See  Camhodgian. 

Knowledge,  source  of :  as  gram- 
matical  category,    115 

Ko'me,   162 

Kwakivtl  (Britisli  Columbia), 
81,  07,  98 


Labial  trills,  53       _ 

Language :  associations  in,  38, 
39;  associations  underlying 
elements  of,  10,  11;  auditory 
cycle  in,  17;  concepts  ex- 
pressed in,  12;  a  cultural 
function,  2,  10;  definition  of, 
7;  diversity  of,  21-3;  ele- 
ments of,  24-38;  emotion  ex- 
pressed in,  39-41;  feeling- 
tones  in,  41,  42;  grammatical 
concepts  of,  86-126;  gram- 
matical processes  of,  59-85; 
historical  aspects  of,  157- 
204;  imitations  of  sounds, 
not  evolved  from,  5,  6;  influ- 
ences on,  exotic,  205-20;  in- 
terjections, not  evolved  from, 
5;  ■  literature  and,  236-47; 
modifications  and  transfers  of 
typical  form  of,  17-21;  an 
"overlaid"  function,  8;  psy- 
cho-physical basis  of,  8,  9; 
race,  culture  and,  221-35; 
simplification  of  experience 
in,  11,  12;  sounds  of,  43-58; 
structure  of,  127-56;  thought 
and,  12-17,  232,  233;  uni- 
versality of,  21-3;  vnriability 
of,  157-65;  volition  expressed 
in,  39-41 

Larynx,  48-50 


Lateral   sounds,  52,   53 

Latin:  attribution,  101;  con- 
cord, 121;  infixing,  26,  75; 
influence  of,  206,  207,  215, 
216;  objective  -m,  119,  120; 
order  of  words,  65,  66,  123; 
plurality.  100;  prefixes  and 
suffixes,  71  ;  reduplicated  per- 
fects, 82,  216;  relational  con- 
cepts expressed,  101,  102; 
sentence-word,  33,  36;  sound 
as  word  in,  single,  24 ;  struc- 
ture, 151,  154;  style,  243, 
244;  suffixing  character,  134, 
137;  syntactic  nature  of 
sentence,  116,  118;  synthetic 
character,  135,  137;  verse, 
244,  245,  246;  word  and  ele- 
ment in,  analysis  of,  27,  29, 
30 

Lettish,  49 

Leveling,  phonetic,  193,  194, 
195.    See  Analogical  leveling. 

Lips,  48 ;  action  of,  62,  53 

Literature,  compensations  in, 
formal,  246,  247;  language 
and,  42,  236-47;  levels  in, 
linguistic,  237-41;  medium 
of,  language  as,  236,  237 ; 
science  and,  238-40 

Literature,  determinants  of: 
linguistic,  240,  241 ;  metrical, 
244-6;  morphological,  241-4; 
phonetic,  241 

Lithuanian,  55,  175,  183 

Localism,   161 

Localization  of  speech,  8,  9 

Lonchrvx  (N".  Amer.),  71;  L. 
Indians,  228 

Lun.TS,  48 

Lutlier,  German,  of,   192 


M 

Mnlaif,  132;  M.  race,  227 

Malayan,  227 

Malayo-  Pnlynesian      languages, 

219.   221,'  227 
Manrhu,  80 
Mannr,   225 


INDEX 


255 


'"Maus,  Ma  use"  (German),  his- 
tory of,   184,   185,    l!)l-3 

Mediterranean  race,  223 

Melanesian  languages,  227,  230 

Meter.     See  Terse. 

JMilton,   242 

Mixed-relational  languages,  146, 
147,  154;  complex,  146,  147, 
151,  155;  simple,  146,  147, 
151 

Modality,    90,    91,    92,    93,    114 

Mon-Khmer    (S.  E.  Asia),  210 

Moore,  George,  242 

Morphological  features,  diffu- 
sion of,  217-20 

Morphology.  See  Structure, 
linguistic. 

"Mouse,  mice"  (English),  his- 
tory of,  184-93 

Munda  languages  (E.  India), 
219 

Murmuring,  50 

Mutation,  vocalic,  184,  185, 
197-9,  20.3,  204 


N 


Nahuatl    (Mexico),    69,    70 

Nasal   sounds,  51 

"Nasal  twang,"  51 

Nasalized  stops,   52 

Nass  (British  Columbia),  62, 
81 

Nationality,  222,  227,  228 

Navaho  (Arizona,  New  Mex- 
ico), 71,  77,  83,  136;  N.  In- 
dians, 228 

Nietzsche,  241 

Nootka  (Vancouver  Id.),  29, 
3.3,  35,  68,  70,  74,  79,  82, 
95,  109-11,  135,  141-3,  151 

Nose,  48;   action  of,  50,  51 

Noun,  123,  124,  126 

Nouns,   classification  of,   113 

Number,  90,  91,  93,  114.  See 
Plurality. 


O 


Object,    92,    08.      See   Personal 
relations. 


Ojibwa    (N.   Amer.),   55 

Onomatopoetic  theory  of  origin 
of  speech,   5,   6 

Oral  sounds,  51-4 

Order,  word:  64-6,  91,  92;  com- 
position as  related  to,  67, 
68;  fixed,  English  tendency 
to,  177-9;  sentence  molded 
by,  117,  118;  significance  of, 
fundamental,    119,    120,    123 

Organs  of  speech,  7,  8,  47,  48 ; 
action   of,   48-54 


Paiute  (N.  Amer.),  31,  32,  36, 
.52,   53,   69,   70 

Palate,  48;  action  of  soft,  51; 
articulations  of,  53 

Pali    (India),  207 

Papuan  languages,  227 

Papuans,  227,  230 

Parts  of  speech,  123-5,  126 

Pattern,  formal,  61,  63,  234, 
242;  phonetic,  57,  58,  187, 
93-6,  99,  200,  206,  211,  214, 
215,   220 

Persian,  163,  207 

Person,  114 

Personal  relations,  91,  92,  93, 
115 

Phonetic  adaptation,  210,  211 

Plionetic  diffusion,  211-15 

Phonetic  law,  basis  of,  195, 
196,  199,  200;  direction  of, 
194,  195,  199;  examples  of, 
186-93;  influence  of,  on  mor- 
phology, 203,  204;  influence  of 
morphology  on,  196-9;  regu- 
larity of,  193,  194;  signifi- 
cance of,  186;  spread  of, 
slow,  190,  191.  See  Leveling, 
phonetic;    Pattern,    phonetic. 

Phonetic  processes,  form  caused 
by,  diff'erences  of,  105,  106; 
parallel  drifts  in,  184-93, 
197-9 

Pitch,  grammatical  use  of,  88- 
5;  metrical  use  of,  246;  pro- 
duction of,  49 ;  significant 
diflFerences  in,  55,  64 


256 


INDEX 


Plains  Indians,  gesture  lan- 
guage of,  20 

"Plattdeutsch,"  224,  225 

Plurality:  classification  of  con- 
cept of,  variable,  110,  111, 
112;  a  concrete  relational 
category,  90,  100;  a  deriva- 
tional or  radical  concept,  99  ; 
expression  of,  multiple,  38, 
62.     See  Number. 

Poles,  225 

Poh/nesian,  132,  150,  155,  227, 
230 

Polynesians,  221,  222,  227,  230 

Polysyntlictic  languages,  130, 
135,  146,  148,   150,  151 

Portuguese,  137 

Predicate,  37,  126 

Prefixes,  26,  64,  70,  71-5 

Prefixing  languages,  134,  135 

Preposition,  125 

Psycho -pliysieal,  aspect  of 
speech,  8,  9 

Pure-relational  languages,  145, 
147,  154,  155;  complex,  145, 
147,  150,  155;  simple,  145, 
147,   150 


Q 


Qualifying  concepts.  See  Con- 
cepts,   derivational. 

Quality  of  speech  sounds,  48; 
of    individual's   voice,   48 

Quantity  of  speech  sounds,  65, 
04 

R 

Race,  221,  222;  language  and, 
lack  of  correspondence  be- 
tween, 227;  language  and, 
theoretical  relation  between, 
231-3;  language  as  correlated 
with,  English,  223-7;  lan- 
guage, culture  and,  corre- 
spondence between,  230,  231 ; 
language,  culture  and,  inde- 
pendence  of,   222,   223 

Radical  concepts.    See  Concepts. 

Radical    element,    26-32 

Radical   word,  28,  29 


"Reading  from  the  lips,"   19 

Reduplication,   64,   79-82 

Reference,  definite  and  indefi- 
nite, 89,  90 

Repetition  of  stem,  26.  See  Re- 
duplication. 

Repression  of  impulse,  167,  168 

Rhyme,   245,   246 

Rolled   consonants,    53 

Ixomance  languages,  137 

Root,  25 

Roumanian,   137 

Rounded   vowels,   52 

Russian,  44,  45,  54,  71,  80, 
103,  212 


S 


Saliaptin  languages  (N.  Amer.), 

220 
Salinan     (S.     W.     California), 

150,   155 
Sanskrit     (India),    54,    75,    82. 

If)!,   154,   175,  200,  207,  209, 

210 
Sarcee  Indians,  228 
Saxon,    Low,    224;     Old,     175; 

Upper,  225 
Saxons,  224,  225 
Scandinavian,  224.    See  Danish  ; 

Icelandic;   Swedish. 
Scandinavians,    224 
Scotch,  224,  226 
Scotch,  Lowland,  188 
Semitic   languages,   61,   68,   76, 

134,   151,   219,   228 
Sentence,     33,     36-8;      binding 

words  into,  methods  of,   115- 

17;     stress    in,    influence    of, 

118,      119;      word-order      in, 

117,   118 
Sequence.     See  Order  of  words. 
Shakespeare,   art  of,   238,   240; 

English   of,   188,   189.   191 
Sha.<ita   (N.  California),  220 
Shilh    (Morocco),    77,    81 
Shilluk    (Nile  headwaters),  84, 

].'-)0,    154,    155 
Siamese,   55,  66,  70,  207 
Singing,  50 


INDEX 


257 


Siouan  languages  (N.  Amer. ), 
76 

Sioux  (Dakota),  29,  76,  95, 
150 

Slavic  languages,  212 

Slavs,  225 

Somali   (E.  Africa),  77,  80,  81 

Soudanese  languages,  84,  154, 
155,  163 

Sound-imitative  words,  4,  5,  6, 
80 

Sounds  of  speech,  24;  adjust- 
ments involved  in,  muscular, 
46;  adjustments  involved  in 
certain,  inhibition  of,  46,  47; 
basic  importance  of,  43;  clas- 
sification of,  54,  55;  combi- 
nations of,  56;  conditioned 
appearance  of,  56,  57;  dy- 
namics of,  55,  56;  illusory 
feelings  in  regard  to,  43-5; 
"inner"  or  "ideal"  system 
of,  57,  58;  place  in  phonetic 
pattern  of,  194-6;  produc- 
tion of,  47-54 ;  values  of,  psy- 
chological, 56-8;  variability 
of,  45,  46 

Spanish,    137 

Speech.     See  Language. 

Spirants,  52 

Splitting  of  sounds,  193,  195 

Stem,  26 

Stock,  linguistic,  163-5,  218, 
221 

Stopped  consonants  {or  stops), 
52 

Stress.     See  Accent. 

Structure,  linguistic,  127-56; 
conservatism  of,  200;  differ- 
ences of,  127,  128;  intui- 
tional forms  of,   153,   154 

Structure,  linguistic,  types  of: 
classification  of,  by  char- 
acter of  concepts,  143-7,  by 
degree  of  fnsion,  13fi-4.3,  by 
degree  of  synthesis,  135,  136, 
by  formal  processes,  133-5, 
from  threefold  standpoint, 
147-9,  154.  into  "formal"  and 
"formless,"  132,  133;  classi- 
fying,  difficulties   in,    129-32, 


149;  examples  of,  149-51; 
mixed,  148;  reality  of,  128, 
129,  149,  152,  153;  validity 
of  conceptual,  historical  test 
of,   152-6 

Style,  38,  216,  242-4 

Subject,  92,  98.  See  Personal 
relations. 

Subject  of  discourse,  37,   126 

Suffixes,  26,  64 

Suffixing,   61,   70,   71-5 

Suffixing  languages,  134,   135 

Survivals,  morphological,  149, 
152,  202,  218,  219 

Sicedish,  55,  110,  175 

Swinburne,   238,   240 

Swiss,  French,  225 

Syllabifying,   56 

Symbolic  languages,  133,  134, 
147,   150,  151 

Symbolic  processes,  134,  138, 
139,   140 

Symbolic-fusional,   151 

Symbolic-isolating,    148 

Symons,  245 

Syntactic  adhesions,  117,  118 

Syntactic  relations,  primary 
methods  of  expressing,  119, 
120;  transfer  of  values  in, 
120.  See  Concepts,  rela- 
tional; Concord;  Order, 
tcord;  Personal  relations; 
Sentence. 

Synthetic  tendency,  69,  135, 
136,   137,   148,   150,   151,    154 


Takelma    (S.   W.   Oregon),   81, 

82,       84,       85,       151,        152, 

220 
Teeth,     48;      articulations     of, 

53,   54 
Telegraph   code,   20 
Temperament,  231,  232 
Tense,   91,   93,    114 
Teutonic  race.    See  Baltic  race. 
Thinking,  types  of,   17,   18 
Thought,    relation   of   language 

to,  12-17,  232,  233 


258 


INDEX 


Throat,    48;     articulations    of, 

49,  50,  53 
Tibetan,  80,   102,   112,  124,   125, 

136,   143,   144,   150,   154,   155, 

20!),  210 
Time.     See  Tense. 
Tlingit    (S.    Alaska),    84,    134, 

135,    219,    229;    T.    Indians, 

230 
Tongue,   48;    action   of,   52,   53, 

54 
Transfer,    types    of    linguistic, 

18-21 
Trills,   53 
Tsimshian   (British  Columbia), 

70,   80,  81.     See  Nass. 
Turkish,  70,  135,  150,  207,  212 
Types,     linguistic,     change     of, 

153-6.       See    Structure,     lin- 
guistic. 


U 


Ugro-Finnic,  212 

"Umlaut."  See  Mutation,  vo- 
calic. 

United  States,  culture  in,  209; 
race  in,  223 

Ural-Altaic    languages,    212 

Uvula,  48,  53 


V 


Vocalic  change,  26,  61,  64,  76-8. 

See  Mutation,  vocalic. 
Voice,  production  of,  50 
Voiced   sounds,   50 
Voiceless:    laterals,  53;   nasals, 

51;  sounds,  49,  50;  trills,  53; 

vowels,  52 
"Voicelessness,"  production  of, 

49 
Volition    expressed    in    speech, 

38,  39 
Vowels,  52 


W 

Walking,  a  biological  function, 
1.  2 

Washo    (Nevada),  81 

Welsh,  51,  53,  225 

Westermann,  D.,   154 

Whisper,  50 

Whitman,  239 

"Whom,"  use  and  drift  of, 
166-74 

Word,  25-8;  definition  of,  32-6; 
syntactic  origin  of  complex, 
117,  118;  "twilight"  type  of, 
28,  299;  types  of,  formal, 
29-32 

Written  language,   19,  20 


Values,  "hesitation."  173;  mor- 
phologic, 131,  132;  phonetic, 
56-8;  variability  in,  of  com- 
ponents  of   drift,    172,   173 

Variations,  linguistic:  dialec- 
tic, 157-65;  historical,  160- 
204;  individual,  157-9,  165, 
199 

Verb,  123,  124,  126;  syntactic 
relations  expressed  in,  115 

Verhaerei?,  245 

Verse,  accentual,  244,  245;  lin- 
guistic determinants  of,  242- 
G;  quantitative,  244,  245; 
syllabic,  244,  245 


Tana  (N.  California),  69,  70, 
74,  76,  96,  105,  111,  112,  126, 
150,   155 

Yiddish,  204 

Yokuts   (S.  California),  77,  78 

Yurok  (N.  W.  California), 
229;   Y.  Indians,  228 


Zaconic   dialect   of  Creek.    162 


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